A CONTRIBUTION TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF GILGIT. 91 
this is not the case. The evidence of the Gilgit specimens is 
entirely in favour of Mr. Sharpe’s view, as I shall now show. 
It will be noticed that in Major Biddulph’s note on this 
species he mentions a female with the wing 8°85 inches, and 
says that it is much paler than the male [adult] specimen ; 
he adds, “the blackish tinge on the grey of the head and 
shoulders has almost entirely disappeared.” On the 10th 
December IJ shot a female, as proved on dissection by myself, 
of which the following is a description :—Leneth, 12°25 inches ; 
expanse, 27°2; wing, 9:25; tail, 6-2; tarsus, 1:4 (feathered in 
front); bill from gape, 0°7 ; closed wings short of end of tail, 0°8 ; 
weight, 6°2 oz. Above, including the secondaries and wing- 
coverts, pale blue-grey, lighter on rump and upper tail-coverts ; 
all the feathers with distinct black shaft-stripes, most marked 
on the head, where the crown is lightly tinged with buff; a 
broad band, including the sides of the neck and the nape, rich 
rufous, this colour being prolonged narrowly above the ear- 
coverts to hinder margin of the eye, where it meets the 
supercilium; all the feathers streaked or shafted black ; fore- 
head, lores, supercilium, and sides of face sullied white; a 
small dark streak downwards from anterior commissure of eye ; 
ear-coverts pale rufescent, margined with grey posteriorly ; 
chin and throat white, bounded on each side by a pale rufous 
band, with the feathers black-shafted ; entire underparts rufous- 
buff, paler on abdomen, with median blackish shaft-stripes ; 
under wing-coverts white, barred with black, and black- 
shafted; quills greyish black, barred with white on the inner 
web, and suffused with bluish grey near the bases of the outer 
webs; outer web of first primary margined with pure white, 
and all the quills narrowly margined with greyish white at 
their tips; tail pale bluish grey, with black shafts, a broad 
subterminal band of black and a narrow white tip; beneath 
the inner webs of all but the uropygials crossed by about seven 
black bands, exclusive of the broad subterminal one. 
Mr. Gurney, who has examined the interesting specimen 
above described, suggests to me that the reason why the stage 
of plumage it represents is not better known in Europe, is 
probably due to the fact that this Falcon is here seldom allowed 
to attain to old age. The female Merlin doubtless takes a 
considerably longer time to attain the fully adult plumage 
than the male; but that the plumage I have described is not 
exceptional is, I think, proved by the fact that of three Merlins 
shot in Gilgit two are females, both in grey plumage.* 
* I think the assumption of the complete blue plumage of the adult must be rare 
and exceptional in the case of females. I do not think I have ever seen an “instance 
of this, and there is rot, I find, a single specimen in our museum of a female in this 
plumage.—ED., S. F. 
