1919-] Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 149 



IX. — Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



The Indian Peregrine Falcon. 



Dear Sir^ — Circumstances have just given me leisure to 

 assimilate the interesting intbruiation in Mr. Stuart Baker's 

 valuable accounts of the " Nidification o£ some Indian 

 Falconidse," but on p. 225 of ' The Ibis ' for 1917 occurs a 

 statement which compels me to address you, as it reopens 

 a question which has long worried me. 



Here apropos of Falc'o peregrinus peregrinator Mr. Stuart 

 Baker writes : "quite common on the N.W. Frontier, the 

 Himalayas^ and their subsidiary hills.'' Judging from the 

 context it would appear that tlie words "N.W. Frontier" 

 are used in a lestricted sense, implying roughly what is 

 known as the North -West- Frontier Province and not 

 generally meaning the whole north-western frontier of the 

 peninsula, including Baluchistan and a portion of the 

 Himalayas. 



If I am right in supposing that here Mr. Stuart Baker is 

 referring to the N.W. Frontier Province, I should be very 

 interested to know it he has any authentic evidence that his 

 Falcon does breed in that province. I know that Capt. C. 

 H. T. Whitehead (whose gallant death we in India cannot 

 sufficiently deplore) wrote (Ibis, 1909, p. 263) from Kohat 

 that Falco peregririator, the Shaliin, is "a resident and the 

 commonest of our larger Falcons. Mr. Donald generally 

 keeps a pair There are many eyries scattered through- 

 out the District." On this statement I wrote and joined issue 

 with Captain Whitehead and asked what evidence he had 

 that the Falcons in question were Falco peregrinator and 

 not Falco babylonicus. His reply was to the effect that he 

 had not killed a specimen, and that he chiefly relied on 

 information supplied to him by Mr. Donald, who is a most 

 enthusiastic and successful Falconer; he does not, however, 

 claim to be a systematic ornithologist. It was further 

 arranged that on his return to India Captain Whitehead 

 should obtain some specimens from the eyries and settle the 

 question definitely. The war, however, intervened. 



