43. Note on the Red-headed Merlin {^salon 



ehicquera *). 



By LiEUT,-CoLONEL D. C. Phillott. 



In Hindustani this pretty little falcon, peculiar to India, 

 is called turumtiy the male being distinguished by the name 

 turwnta. In Persia, however, the English merlin {^salon regulus) 

 is called tiirumta^ and, according to Scully, in Eastern Turkistan 



tunimtaij ( iS^'^J}^ )» 1^ Persian MSS. written in India, the 



former is sometimes distinguished by the Turkish epithet qizil- 

 hcish^ " red-headed." Though there is a Hindi proverb : Tir^ 

 turumtt^ istri^ chhutat baz na-a^en : Jhut Jo mane yihhachan so 

 nar kvrh kahoen, *' An an*ow, a tnrumti and a woman return not 

 once they have left their master's hand: The man that thinks 

 this false is certainly a fool," the proverb is certainly a calumny 

 far as the turumtl is concerned. 

 This little falcon is frequently found near villages, and even 

 in cities, and of course in wooded cantonments. 1 caught two 

 in the very centre of Jallandhar City, in a sparrow-net erected 

 on the roof of an Indian gentleman's house. Another, one of a 

 pair permanently settled near the Cavalry lines in Bannun, was 

 caught in March, 1893, inside the Cavalry hospital, where it had 

 chased a sparrow. 



The Red-headed Merlin can be easily caught in a hol-chhatrt^ 

 for it will alight and chase on foot like a shikra. The English 

 Merlin, on the contrary, stoops at the bait like a peregi'ine, and 

 consequently the bal-chhatri is not a suitable device for snaring it. 

 The Turumtl is larger, stronger, and bolder than the English 

 Merlin, but is not so good at ringing up ; in fact I do not think 

 it could be flown at larks. Lieut. -Colonel E. Delme Radcliffe 

 has remarked in ^ Falconry^ that " There is less difference of colour 

 between the immature and adult birds in this species, than 

 in any other hawks used in falconry." At first sight there 

 appears to be no difference. The differences that exist in mark- 

 ings are minute. Old birds, however, can be readily distin- 

 guished by the greater brightness of their plumage, and in them, 

 too, the legs, cere, etc., are orange, and, not as in young birds, 

 bright lemon. Colonel Delme Radcliffe also remarks that there 

 is no sexual difference of colour as there is in the English 

 Merlin. 



The Red-headed Merlin breeds in the plains in the Panjab in 

 April and May, nesting only in trees. Marshall in his " Birds* 

 Nesting in India '* gives the following details of its nesting : 



I Chicquera is, according to Jerdon, a corruption of shikra, the Hindi 

 nam* of A^iur badius. 



