BAZA LOPHOTES. 99 



With age the back becomes blacker and more glossy, and the rufous colouring of the scapulars and tertials gradually 

 gives place to the nigrescent adult hue ; the white patch on the outer webs of the secondaries becomes rufous at 

 the margins, and then black near the shafts, till in the old bird it finally disappears altogether. 



Obs. The immature plumage of this bird appears not to have been hitherto described. In looking over the specimens 

 in the National Collection, I came upon the example treated of above, which is undoubtedly in yearling plumage. 

 The absence of the posterior tooth, the undeveloped crest, the pale edgings of the abdominal feathers, and the 

 appearance of the under tail-coverts unmistakably indicate its immaturity, and have furnished a key by which at 

 last the gradations in the plumage of this interesting species may be understood. The existence of this specimen 

 precludes the possibility of the bird shot by Col. Tickell (J. A. 8. B. 1833, p. 569) being the young of this Baza. 

 This example was 18 inches in length, had a " fine long occipital crest black with white tips ; the head, nape, and 

 wing-coverts clouded with ashy and rusty ; back clouded with brown ; lower parts white, with a streak of black 

 down the centre of the throat, and with rusty bars on the breast and belly." This bird cannot be referable to 

 B. lophotes ; but it may be Sp. alboniger or another species of the genus Baza (B. jerdoni ?). 



Distribution. — This beautiful Falcon is one of our rarest raptorial birds, and is, as far as observation has 

 hitherto tended to prove, a cool-season migrant to Ceylon ; and the fact of its having been observed to be 

 migratory to Burmah and the east coast of India is, I think, for the most part, confirmatory of this belief. 

 During its visits to the island it appears to confine itself mostly to the low country, and to be most partial to 

 the northern half of the island. It was first recorded from Ceylon by Edgar Layard, who obtained a specimen 

 near Jaffna, and who speaks in his " Notes " of another having been procured by Mr. Mitford, of Ratnapura. 

 Subsequent observers do not seem to have met with it until Mr. Bligh obtained another, which was caught 

 near Lemastota. In January 1876 I came suddenly upon a little troop of five in close company, and out of 

 them secured an immature male. In the following October I saw another example near Ambepussa ; and in 

 January last year (1877), through the kindness of Mr. Chas. Byrde, of the Ceylon Civil Service, I received a 

 second specimen, shot at Pasyala, in the Western Province. Mr. Simpson, of the Indian Telegraph Depart- 

 ment, who has spent much of his time in the northern forests, and who is an accurate observer of birds, informed 

 me that he had seen this Falcon at Kanthelai tank. Mr. Holdsworth mentions having seen specimens from 

 the Kandy district which, with the exception of the evidence afforded by the Lemastota specimen, is the only 

 record we have of its occurrence in the hill-region. 



This species has a limited geographical distribution. As far as can be judged, it has its head-quarters in 

 Assam and Burmah, and migrates thence down the east coast of India to Ceylon. Jerdon procured one 

 specimen on the east coast near Nellore ; and he remarks that it is occasionally killed at Calcutta, and is 

 spread very sparingly throughout India. Of late years, however, it has not been recorded from the Deccan, 

 North-west Provinces, Chota Nagpur, nor any of the western districts, the ornithology of all which regions 

 has been so fully worked out in ' Stray Feathers '; neither has it been recorded from the Travancore, Palani, 

 nor Nilghiri forests. It can only therefore locate itself in few places (and those far between) when it makes its 

 annual visits to the Peninsula. The strangest feature in its distribution is, that it is likewise nothing more than 

 a migrant to Burmah and Tenasserim. In the latter district Mr. Davison found it not uncommon in December 

 and January throughout the southern parts of it ; but no mention is made of its occurrence at other seasons, so 

 that it is undoubtedly non-resident on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal. There are specimens from 

 Malacca and Pinang in the British Museum; but it has not been met with in the Andamans or Nicobars. 

 Neither Mr. Oates nor Capt. Feilden appear to have found it in Upper Pegu ; but in North-eastern Cachar, 

 which lies to the north of it, Mr. Inglis found it consorting together, in November, in the same sociable 

 manner that I did in the northern forests of Ceylon. Where, then, is its home throughout the greater part 

 of the year ? Where are those birds bred which mysteriously visit the above-mentioned regions for so short 

 a time and again vanish as suddenly as they appeared ? The northern portion of Burmah, together with the 

 immense Chinese provinces of Yunan, Sechuen, and Quei Chorn, which lie to the north and north-east of the 

 Burmese kingdom, are traversed here and there by extensive mountain-systems, such as the Palkoi, " Snowy," 

 and other ranges — a vast and little-known ornithological district extending over 12° of latitude, all of which 

 forms a territory sufficiently large to furnish a home for a bird of far less local disposition than a Baza. It is 

 pretty certain that this species does not inhabit the more eastern parts of the Celestial Empire, for Pere David 

 makes no mention of its occurrence there or in the Moupin mountains in his new work on the Birds of China. 



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