GREY FALCON. 



Fdco concolor, TEMAI. 

 PLATE III. 



Entirely cinereous, with the shaft of each feather marKeu ^ 

 a black stripe ; quills, black ; tail with nnmerous white 

 bars, which are obsolete on the outer webs. 



Falco concolor, Temminck, PL Col. 



IT is seldom we find, among the Falcons, that the 

 plumage is so strikingly coloured as to distinguish 

 a species at first sight. Their general cast of co- 

 louring is in spots, stripes, or bands ; mixed up 

 with different shades of brown, so that it becomes 

 extremely difficult to express, by words, all those 

 minor shades of difference which the practised eye 

 of the naturalist detects at a glance, when the ob- 

 jects themselves are brought under comparison. 



The bird before us, however, is one of those whose 

 colours are altogether peculiar. Its whole plumage 

 is of a deep slate colour, somewhat paler beneath, 

 and with a brownish tinge in some parts of the 

 upper plumage ; this uniformity is only relieved by 

 a slender stripe of black down the centre of each 

 feather ; these stripes are darkest and most conspi- 

 cuous upon the head, ears, neck, breast, and under 

 parts ; they become faint on the lower part of the 

 back, wing-covers, belly, and vent, while they are 



