ORD. RAPTORES. 



FAM. FALCONIBM. 



GEN. FALCO. 

 PLATE XXVIII. 

 FALCO PEBEGRINATOR, 

 THE SHAHEEN FALCON. 



Syaon.—F. Sliaheen, Jerdon Cat. No. 29, and 111. Ind. Orn. PI. xii. q. t. 



At Plate XII. of the present work I gave a figiire of the male of the present fine Falcon, 

 under the name of jP. Shaheen. It is only quite recently, since indeed the publication of 

 Mr. Gray's list of the Raptores of the British museum, that it has been ascertained by 

 British Ornithologists to have been described by Sundevall, a Swedish Naturalist who visit- 

 ed Calcutta, under the name now applied to it. I am much inclined to consider that the 

 figure of the Falcon in the PI. Enl. 469 was taken from a Shaheen, but this is said to have 

 been European, and the Shaheen has not to my knowledge been hitherto enumerated, ex- 

 cept in the Fauna of India, though I have little doubt that it extends far west, throughout 

 Asia at all events. 



The present figure was taken from a living trained female in my possession, that had 

 completed one moult. The subsequent changes consist in the whole of the spots on the 

 lower surface gradually disappearing, and in the upper plumage becoming lighter, and 

 more slaty in hue. 



Dimensions of a female are as follows : length about 18|, wing 13i, tail 6^. With re- 

 ference to the addendum at the end of my first Number, I may state that the F. guttatus 

 there alluded to is not the Shaheen. 



