238 FALLOW-CHAT—FANTAIL 
135). It is at once distinguished by its very dark colouring, the 
lower parts being occasionally almost as deeply tinted at all ages 
as the upper. 
All the birds hitherto named possess one character in common. 
The darker markings of their plumage are longitudinal before the 
first real moult takes place, and for ever afterwards are transverse. 
In other words, when young the markings are in the form of stripes, 
when old in that of bars. The variation of tint is very great, 
especially in F. peregrinus ; but the experience of falconers, whose 
business it is to keep their birds in the very highest condition, 
shews that a Falcon of either of these groups if light-coloured in 
youth is light-coloured when adult, and if dark when young is also 
dark when old—age, after the first moult, making no difference in 
the complexion of the bird. The next group is that of the so- 
called ‘‘ Desert-Falcons” (Gennxa), wherein the difference just 
indicated does not obtain, for long as the bird may live and often 
as it may moult, the original style of markings never gives way to 
any other. Foremost among these are to be considered the LANNER 
and the SAKER (commonly termed Ff. lanarius and F. sacer), both 
well known in the palmy days of Falconry, but only within the last 
fifty years or so re-admitted to full recognition. Both of these 
birds belong properly to South-eastern Europe, North Africa, 
and South-western Asia. ‘They are, for their bulk, less powerful 
than the members of the preceding group, and though they may 
be trained to high flights are naturally captors of humbler game. 
The precise number of species belonging here is very doubtful, but 
among the many candidates for recognition are especially to be 
named the Luggar, F. jugger, of India, and the Prairie-Falcon, 
F. mexicanus, of the western plains of North America. 
The systematist finds it hard to decide in what group he should 
place two somewhat large Australian species, J’. hypoleucus and F. 
subniger, both of which are rare in collections—the latter especially ; 
and, until more is known about them, their position must remain 
doubtful. 
FALLOW-CHAT, a local name of the WHEATEAR. 
FANTAIL, the name of a well-known breed of domestic 
Dovxs, but also given by the English in India, Australia, and 
New Zealand to several species of the genus Fhipidura of Vigors 
and Horsfield, supposed to belong to the Family Muscicapide 
(FLYCATCHER), and containing more than thirty species which have 
the habit of expanding their tail, generally a much-developed 
feature, by a sidelong flirt. By some the Indian and Malayan 
forms are separated as a genus Leucocerca (cf. Jerdon, Bb. Ind. i. pp. 
450-454 ; Gould, Handb. 2. Austral. i. pp. 237-246).1 
1 Fantail-WARBLER is a name that has been given to the Cisticola schenicola 
