62 FALCONING. 



and I have seen young birds from India which I could not separate from 

 European examples. A natural inference is that these may not be P. 

 pt Honor hynchus but P. apivorus, the young of which may migrate to India 

 in the winter." Mr. A. O. Hume's remarks are also to nearly the same effect. 



ff a j) t The whole of India, except Sind ; the Himalayas, Burmah, the 

 Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra and Java, also Nepaul and Ceylon. 



Breeds in May and June, on trees, making a moderate-sized nest of sticks and 

 twigs lined with leaves or grass ; eggs normally 2 in number, spherical 

 nearly, or a very broad oval, white or buffy with red, reddish brown, or blood 

 red markings and varying in size, from 1-82 to 2*2 in length and from 1*5 

 to 1*9 in breadth. The food of the Honey Buzzard is young birds, frogs, 

 mice, bees, and reptiles generally. It has a rapid flight, soars very high and 

 gracefully, and glides through the air without apparent effort. It is easily tamed, 

 bears confinement well and does not show the fierceness of other birds of 

 prey. Another species, Perm's brachypterus, Blyth, has been mentioned in Stray 

 Feathers, Vol. III. p. 36, as having been found in Upper Pegu. The description 

 is certainly very curt, and I have seen birds answering it from the Punjab 

 and the Deccan. The extremely variable character of the plumage of the 

 intermediate and crested stages of the species, leaves room to doubt its 

 validity. 



Sub-family FALCONING, FALCONS. 



Bill short, suddenly curved from the base ; upper mandible distinctly 

 toothed ; nostrils, either round, oblique, or linear oval ; cere short ; tarsi, 

 slender, naked ; hinder aspect reticulate. Outer toe only connected to mid- 

 toe by interdigital membrane ; tibia longer than tarsus. 



Gen. Baza. Hodgs. 



Bill small, much hooked, grooved on its side ; upper mandible with two 

 sharp teeth on each side, lower with 3-4 ; lores covered with feathers ; nostrils 

 transverse, narrow ; head crested ; wings moderate ; the 3rd quill longest, 

 the 1st three slightly emarginate towards the tip ; tarsi covered with small 

 smooth hexagonal scales ; claws small, sub equal. 



58- Baza lophotes, Tern. PI. Col. i. pi. 10; Gray List, Gen. B., p. 4, 

 Btyih. Cat. B. Mus. Soc. Beng., p. 17 ; Jerd. B. Ind., i. p. in, No. 58 ; 

 Bly. Ibis, 1863, p. ii ; Wall. Ibis 1868, p. 19 ; Hume, Rough Notes, p. 337 ; 

 Hold., P. Z. S. 1872, Sharpe, Cat. Ace. B. M., p. 352 ; Hume, Sir. F.> vi. 

 p. 24; viii. p. 191. The BLACK CRESTED KITE. 



