28 ACCIPITKES. 



Adult female {the most usual variety). The whole of the head 

 and neck, chest, breast, and flanks, dark-brown washed vrith 

 tawny rufous or dull rust-red, each feather with a stripe of 

 blackish-brown down the centre, which stripe becomes almost 

 jet black on the crown of the head, nape, and sides of the 

 face, and extends over the tips and greater portion of each 

 feather; abdomen and thighs rufous-brown, with a narrow- 

 line of blackish dow^n the shaft of each feather ; under tail- 

 coverts dull rufous-brown washed with ashy at the tips and 

 freckled with ashy-brown and white (^?^ so??ze forming white cross- 

 bars). Primaries blackish-brown, black at the tips, the inner 

 four quills ashy-brown, margined with white at the tips, all 

 crossed with seven or eight blackish bands, interspaces at the base 

 ashy- white ; secondaries varying from dark to light ashy-brown, 

 lightest at the base of inner webs, all more or less tipped with 

 white and barred similar to the primaries ; wing-coverts of 

 various shades of light and dark brown, some washed with ashy- 

 brown, indistinct obsolete bars on most of them on the concealed 

 portions, interspaces whitish ; median coverts ashy-brown shaded 

 mesially with darker tint, and margined with ashy-white, form- 

 ing a light-coloured and more or less broad longitudinal band 

 across the wing to the shoulder ; larger scapulars dark blackish- 

 brown, the basal half of the feathers becoming lighter, barred like 

 the secondaries ; smaller scapulars and remaining coverts lighter 

 brown shaded mesially with darker, occasionally margined with 

 ashy-white, as in the median coverts ; all the wing feathers being 

 white at the base ; shoulders varying from dark to light brown, 

 the feathers all more or less margined with ashy-white, the central 

 portion darker, the marginal feathers brown washed with rufous, 

 having a blackish shaft-line ; under surface of the wings blackish- 

 brown tinged with rufous near the body, the primaries and 

 secondaries ashy-brown, lighter on the inner webs, the cross- 

 bars of the upper surface showing through, the interspaces ashy- 

 brown becoming white at the base, secondaries margined with 

 white at the tips, tips of the primaries blackish-brown, shafts 

 brown, white at the base ; under surface of the scapulars ashy, 

 inner webs ashy-white, bases white, bars indistinctly showing 

 through on the larger feathers ; back and rump dark-brown, 

 shaded mesially with blackish -brown, feathers white at the base ; 

 central uppertail-coverts, blackish-brown, lateral ones ashy-brown 

 ■washed with rufous nearest the thighs ; terminal ones ashy-brown 

 tipped with white, outer ones margined with white and occa- 

 sionally crossed Avith whitish bars ; tail above ashy-brown, inner 

 w^ebs of a duller brown, their bases white mottled with brown, 

 all the feathers crossed with seven or eight curved bars of dark- 

 brown, the last the darkest, the tips margined with ashy-white, 

 shafts brownish, at the base white ; tail below glistenig ashy- 

 white, two or three of the bars showing through near the tips ; 



