FALCONIN A, 13 
yellow to a bright almost orange-yellow. The claws are blackish- 
horny; the cere is dingy greenish-grey or plumbeous in the 
young, bright yellow in the adult ; the orbit greenish-yellow in the 
former, bright yellow in the latter; the bill varies at base from 
greenish-horny to greyish-blue and even blue, and at tip from 
dark horny-blue to bluish-black; the irides are brown. 
Adult Male——Above dusky-ashy or slate color ; crown of head 
dull rufous with central ashy-black striations; lores, forehead, 
chin, throat and eyebrow white; moustachial stripe black ; 
wing-coverts concolorous with the back, the carpal margin 
white; the breast white with a few brown spots; lower abdo- 
men, flanks and thighs ashy brown; tail clear ashy-grey with 
pale rufous bars on the inner webs and a white tip. 
Young of a chocolate-brown above and below; wing-coverts 
with rufous margins; head _ yellowish-fawn; or pale rufous; 
forehead and eyebrow whitish; chin and throat white; under 
tail-coverts dirty-white with faint brown markings. 
The Laggar is the commonest of the larger Falcons, and occurs 
throughout the region. It is a permanent resident, and breeds 
during the first three months of the year, the majority of them 
laying in Fabruary. It is by no means particular in the choice 
of a site for its nest; a hole in the face of an old building, a 
ledge on a rocky or clayey cliff, a fork ima tree, or even a 
deserted crow or other nest, are all made use of. The eggs, 
three or four in number, are oval in shape, of a fine but chalky 
texture, reddish or yellowish-white in color, so closely freckled 
and stippled with reddish-brown, as to leave little or none of the 
ground color discernible. At such times the egg, unless looked 
at closely, appears to be a uniform brick-red. Sometimes the 
color is whiter and the egg blotched, clouded or capped with 
reddish-brown, not however very distinct. They are at times 
very beautiful. 
They average 2 inches in length by 1°55 in breadth. 
Falco babylonicus, Gurney. 
12.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. I, p. 32; Hume’s Scrap Book, 
p. 79; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 67. 
THE REepD-cAP FALcon. 
Length, 16; expanse, 38; weight, 120zs; wing, 11°87; tail, 
(of 12 feathers), 6; tarsus, (feathered for 0°5 in front) 187; 
bill from gape, 1:19. 
Legs and feet bright yellow, whitish at the joints of the 
reticulated scales of the tarsus; soles with large pads, very 
conspicuous under second joint of middle and exterior toe ; claws 
horn black; middle-toe very slender and elongated; irides 
dark brown; edges of the lids greenish-yellow, with tiny dark 
lashes ; membrane of the orbits pale greenish. 
Forehead buffy-white, feathers dark shafted; line over the 
