TRE BIRDS OF PBEY OF THE JPUNJAB. 137 



away at once and fly across an open bit of country 

 or get into very thick scrub, he is probably left in 

 peace, but otherwise he finds it no easy matter to 

 retain his meal. Though slow in flight, the babler 

 is extremely quick in sharp sudden attacks at close 

 quarters. 



The Shikra breeds in trees from April to June 

 building a nest of twigs and sticks lined with 

 grass, roots and laying usually 3, sometimes 4, 

 smooth, bluish-white eggs, usually unspotted, very 

 rarely with a few small greyish specks, and measur- 

 ing l"oo by 1'2:?. 



Like the Goshawk, the Shikra is not lacking in 

 pluck and dash and can be trained to quarry 

 bigger and stronger than itself. 



Crows and patridges can be taken by a Shikra 

 and Dr. Blanford quotes Jerdon as stating that 

 even young peafowl and small herons do not come 

 amiss, but personally 1 have never seen one take 

 anything bigger than a crow or a partridge, 

 though 1 have seen one pull down a wounded 

 Great Stone-Plover which could just fly. 



Genus Accipiter. 



Ko. 1247 Accipiter nisus. The Sparrow-Hawk. 



Characteristics. Size small, length of female about lo" ; wing 



9i" ; of male, length about 13 ; wing 8. Tip of 

 primaries in closed wing reach to about half way 

 down the tail : bill from gape about half mid-toe 

 without claw. There is a vast difference between 

 the tarsi of Astur and Accipiter, that of latter 

 being very much thinner and the mid-toe longer. 

 '■' Five or six dark bars, one terminal, on 4th, quill 

 in adults : no gular stripe." 



Colouration. Adult male. " Upper parts slaty grey, some birds 



darker than others, the white bases of the feathers 

 showing more or less on the nape and supercilia ; 

 feathers of scapulars, rump and upper tail-coverts, 

 and sometimes of the back, dark-shafted ; quills 

 dark brown above, whitish beneath, with broad 

 blackish cross-bands ; tail generally with 4 (some- 

 times ■')) cross-bars on the middle feathers, 5 or 6 

 on the outer, the last bar broadest and sub-terminal, 

 tips of feathers white : lower parts white or buff, 

 the lower parts more or less distinctly dark-shafted : 

 breast and flanks very often sufl'used with rusty 

 red, the throat with a few dark shaft-lines ; the 

 breast, abdomen and thigh-coverts rather irregularly 

 barred with rufous brown, the bars usually as broad 

 as the interspaces, bxit in very old birds either rusty 

 red or narrow and dark brown ; under tail-coverts 

 white." 



Adult females are browner above and less rufous 

 beneath, with the dark shafts to the feathers more 

 conspicuous. 

 18 



