18/6.] BIRDS OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA." 77U 



meditating with two of my brother officers who were out with me 

 whether we had time to dig out the animal, that a Falcon was seen 

 scouring the plain, apparently in search of food. My shikaree soon 

 produced the bird, the first Saker I had seen in the flesh ; and though 

 it is pale rufescent, or "desert-colour" generally, the oval spots on its 

 rectrices, and light-coloured soft parts, as compared with Falcojugger, 

 convinced me that it did not belong to that species, it was not until 

 the following morning, when I had an opportunity of comparing it 

 with several Laggars, that I really felt comfortable in my identification. 



The bird proved to be a very old but small male, measuring 18*5 

 inches in length, with a wing of 13*5, or about the dimensions of an 

 undersized 5 F.jugger. From the adult of that species it differed 

 most conspicuously in the coloration of its soft parts, the legs, feet, 

 and cere of the latter being bright orange, while in the former 

 (Saker) the corresponding parts are of a light dingy yellow ; the bill 

 too was paler, the basal three fourths of the upper mandible, as also 

 the whole of the lower one, being of a pearly white tinged with pink. 



As the various phases of the plumage of F. sacer have been so fully 

 described by Hume*, 1 will merely remark in reference to the adult 

 state of the present specimen, that the head and nape (particularly 

 the latter) are pure white, with narrow central shaft-stripes, the mantle 

 is of a uniform pale rufescent hue, the feathers being broadly edged 

 with rufous of a darker shade, that all the rectrices have large oval 

 white spots on both webs, with the exception of one of the central 

 feathers, on which the spots have almost disappeared, and that the 

 chin, throat, and breast are pure white, with only a few clove-brown 

 spots across the breast, the markings on the sternum, flanks, abdo- 

 men, and tibial plumes being more numerous and having the form 

 of ovate streaks instead of spots. 



Before leaving the subject of F. sacer, I should not omit to men- 

 tion that the specimen in question has an abnormally shaped upper 

 mandible, the tip of the bill, which is very sharp and pointed, 

 being produced a third of an inch beyond the tooth or notch, and 

 rounded over exactly as it is in the genus Palceornis. In reference 

 to this deformity, the following remarks by Mr. Gurney (in epist.) 

 will be read with interest: — "May not your F. sacer with the deformed 

 bill have been a trained bird that had been turned off when it got 

 old and past its best 1 I have known birds of prey acquire a similar 

 prolongation of the upper mandible in confinement, though perhaps 

 not to the same extent" f . 



The Falcon, however, was in excellent condition, and showed no 

 sign of previous captivity. Furthermore, it was evidently hunting 

 on a plain that abounded with Hardwick's Uromastix, a Lizard 

 that Jerdon has pointed out, on the authority of Punjab falconers, 

 as constituting its "favourite food" in a feral state J; and as I can 

 hardly believe that a Saker that had once been trained to strike such 

 large game as the Bustard and Crane would revert to reptilian food, 



* Cj. 'Stray Feathers,' vol. i. p. 152 et seqq. 



t I possess a female specimen of Pt/rrhulauda grisea that has a similar pro- 

 longation of the upper mandible. 

 J Of. • The Ibis ' for 1871, p. 239. 



