FALCO SEVEEUS. Ill 



Adult female. Length to front of cere 11*0 to 12-0 inches ; culmen from cere 0-65 ; wing 9-2 to 9-7 ; tail 4-9 ; tarsus 

 1-3 to 1-4 ; middle toe 1-3, claw (straight) 0-5. The wing sometimes reaches 0*5 beyond the tail. 



Iris deep brown ; cere and bill at base yellow, the upper mandible and tip of the lower blackish ; legs and feet yellow. 

 claws black. 



Entire face, head, hind neck, and interscapular region glossy black, paling into blackish slaty on the back, wings, 

 rump, and upper tail-coverts ; the feathers on these parts have the shafts black and the bases blackish brown, the 

 slaty hue being confined to the tips of the feathers ; on the head and hind neck there is an ashen hue ; quills 

 blackish brown, the inner webs more or less barred with rufous (in some very old birds these are almost absent or 

 reduced to pale transverse dashes); tail slaty black, tipped finely with rufous, and in some with a subterminal 

 band, such examples having the outer feathers with rufous or greyish bars on the inner webs. Some examples 

 have undefined slaty bars across the whole tail. 



Throat and fore neck buff, tinged with rufous, the colour running up into the sides of the neck, all beneath from the 

 fore neck, with the thighs, under tail- and under wing-coverts, deep chestnut or ferruginous ; under primary-coverts 

 paler rufous, barred with black ; the remainder of the wing-lining with black shaft-lines ; sides of the chest with a 

 few black patches, running into the black hind neck ; middle of the chest usually with a few black shaft-lines. 



Young. The immature bird is almost as dark above as the adult ; but the exposed portions of the sides of the hind- 

 neck feathers are more or less rufous, the central tail-feathers are crossed with greyish markings, and the inner 

 webs of the remaining feathers barred with rufous : extreme tips of the secondaries whitish ; chin and throat as 

 in the adult, the rufous of the under surface not quite so deep ; the chest streaked with drop-shaped striae of 

 black, and the breast and flanks marked with oval central drops, the thighs and under tail-coverts with central 

 streaks, longer and narrower than the breast-markings. 



Distribution. — The handsome Indian Hobby can only be classed in our lists as a straggler, having been 

 but twice procured in the island. The first record of it as a Ceylonese bird is contained in Mr. Holdsworth's 

 Catalogue (loc. cit.), from a specimen shot by Mr. Bligh, at Catton Estate, Haputale ; but from recent investi- 

 gation, as noticed in the preceding article, I find that Layard killed another example, which is, in all proba- 

 bility, referable to bis Falco peregrinator shot at Gillyrnally ; and he therefore must be looked upon as the 

 discoverer of the species in Ceylon. I imagine that both these specimens were killed during the cool season, 

 and that without doubt the species is migratory to Ceylon, as it is to South India. 



This Hobby is a bird of fairly wide distribution, being found throughout the whole of the Indian peninsula 



Adult female. Length to front of cere (from skin) 13 - ; wing 8-5 to 9-1 ; tail 6-5 to 6 - 8 ; tarsus 1-6 to 1-7. Weight 

 8"5 oz. (Hume). 



The above measurements are from N. Bengal and Nepaul specimens. 



" Iris rather light brown ; orbits yellow ; bill greenish yellow at base, bluish black at tip ; legs and feet pure (slightly 

 orange) yellow." (Hume.) 



Head, back, and sides of neck cinnamon-rufous ; a moustachial streak of a paler hue than the head, between which and 

 the eye is a blackish streak ; a dark superciliary line ; back, rump, scapulars, and wing-coverts bluish slate, paling 

 gradually towards the tail, and blending somewhat into the hue of the neck; the feathers of these parts with dark 

 shafts ; wing-coverts at the point of the wing barred with blackish grey ; feathers along the ulna edged with 

 rufous, and beyond this the edge of the wing is buff-white ; primaries deep brown, the inner webs barred narrowly 

 with white, not reaching on the terminal half to the edge of the feather ; primary-coverts and secondaries slate- 

 grey, the inner webs albescent and barred with blackish grey ; tail pale bluish grey, lighter than the coverts, deeply 

 tipped with greyish white, and crossed with a broad subterminal black band, the remainder crossed with narrow- 

 widely separated rays of blackish grey. 



Chin, throat, sides of the face, and under surface white, barred from the breast downwards with blackish grey or dark 

 slate-colour, and the markings on the centre of the breast somewhat pointed at the middle of the feather ; flanks 

 more heavily barred than the breast; under wing-coverts white, the external feathers with dark mesial lines, the 

 inner ones barred like the chest. 



Eemales that I have examined in the British Museum have the under wing-coverts more darkly barred than males. 

 The tail-band appears to fade very much in this species, turning brown when the feathers become old. 



