FALCO. 185 



Palco atriceps, Hume. The Black-cap Falcon. 

 Falco atriceps, Hume ; Hutne, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 9 bis. 



To my late friend Major Cock, then of Dhurmsala, I owed the 

 first eggs of the Black-cap Falcon that I obtained. He sent them 

 to me, together with the female bird. He gives a most interesting 

 account of his operations. He found the nest on a ledge of rock, 

 on the face of a most dangerous precipice. The nest had for many 

 years been occupied by the Black-cap, but in 1868 a Roc, O. liima- 

 layensis, laid there, and had to surrender its eggs to Major Cock. 

 In 1869 the Falcons again took possession, and on the lOfch of 

 March this gentleman visited it. " I went," he says, " to the 

 Falcon's nest, and found the female sitting close ; with great 

 difficulty I got her off, by throwing stones down from above; but 

 even then she did not fly, but only shifted her position on the 

 ledge so as to show me two eggs in the nest. I got men and 

 ropes, and a friend, Captain Duff, to try and shoot her as she left 

 the nest; but though I, with great difficulty, induced a man to 

 descend and take the eggs (after I had all but gone over the preci- 

 pice myself, a tuft of grass having given way under my foot at the 

 very verge), the female got off scathless, or but slightly wounded, 

 owing to the height of the precipice. Captain Duff, who has a 

 house hard by, tells me that the birds are always killing the Blue 

 Eock-Pigeons under his very nose. Both birds showed themselves, 

 but neither came sufficiently within shot to enable us to bag them, 

 though we fired at the female." On the 17th March he returned 

 to the nest, where the female was again sitting ; on driving her 

 off, he saw that another egg had been laid, and he again fired at 

 the old bird, but, owing to the hazardous position in which he was 

 standing at the time, again missed her. On the 20th he re-visited 

 the eyrie. " I was sitting under the cliff when a Lammergeyer 

 came sailing by, and the male Falcon dashed at him, and then 

 returned to the nest, the female flying out in pursuit. As she 

 returned, I shot her; the male then sat on the egg (there was 

 still only one) for some time, when, by sending a man up above 

 to throw down stones, he (the Falcon, not the man) flew off, and I 

 got a shot at and wounded him. He managed to get on to a tree 

 overhanging the precipice, and though I got as near to him as I 

 could, and took a pot shot, he was too far off and sailed away 

 down the Jchud (valley)." Subsequently Major Cock took the third 



e gg- 



The extraordinary boldness exhibited by the female bird is very 



characteristic. 



The nest, as may be guessed from its age, and from having once 

 at least served our large Himalayan Vulture as a laying-place, was 

 a large irregular mass of sticks. Two eggs were taken the first, 

 and one the second time ; but probably the normal number is four. 

 Two of these eggs, which I saw, were very beautiful; broad, very 

 perfect ovals, slightly larger than the eggs of F.jugyer, and with 



