STRAY FEATHERS. 



Vol. VIII. DECEMBER 1879. No. 6. 



Sioi^^ on ^uko Map and ^kIco pxe^YmUr. 



By J. H. Gurnet. 



^ Mr. Hume has kindly sent me for examination the type spe- 

 cimen of Falco atriceps. It is a male shot at Kotgurh near A-^ 

 Simla in July 1868, and is fully adult, unless the rufous bases / '"^^ 

 to many feathers of the nape are, as I suspect, the remains of 

 immature plumage. With this exception, the entire upper sur- 

 face and sides of the head, and also the neek, are of a dark 

 blackish brown, except on the sides of the neck, where the 

 fulvous white of the breast extends into a double indentation, 

 of which the anterior and larger portion runs in behind the 

 blackish brown ear-coverts and adjacent confluent moustache, 

 and the second and posterior portion slightly indents the black- 

 ish plumage of the neck further back, so that there is about 

 half an inch of dark plumage between the apex of the two 

 indentations ; the scapulars and interscapulars are slaty grey, 

 crossed transversely with slaty black, these transverse bars be- 

 ing darker and also occupying a larger portion of the feather 

 on the upper part of the mantle than on the lower. This 

 remark also holds good as regards the wing- coverts, and in the 

 feathers of those parts adjacent to the edge of the wing, the 

 dark tint (which is brownish-black) prevails to the exclusion of 

 the paler slate color ; the tertials resemble the lower scapulars, 

 but are mottled with whitish along the edge of their inner 

 webs ; the primaries and secondaries are dark blackish brown, 

 with transverse bars of greyish or brownish white, mottled 

 with brown on their inner webs ; the lower back and upper 

 tail-coverts resemble the lower scapulars, but on the coverts 

 the transverse dark bars are darker and more distinct than on 

 the lower back ; the tail is slaty grey on the basal, and slaty 

 black on the apical half, the latter hue increasing in intensity 

 as the tip of the tail is approached ; all the rectrices have, how- 

 ever, a slight whitish tip, except the central pair ; the tail is 



