CEBCHNEIS TINNUNCULTJS. 115 



Iris dark brown ; cere and eyelid chrome-yellow ; bill adjoining cere and at the base beneath paler yellow, darkening to 

 bluish at the tips ; legs and feet chrome-yellow, claws black. 



Head, back, and sides of neck, together with the moustachial stripe, ashy bluish, the feathers with dark shafts ; lower 

 part ofhind neck, back, and wing-coverts cinnamon-rufous, with an arrow-headed blackish-brown spot, more or 

 less broad, at the tip of each feather, developing on the tertials into a subterminal bar ; quills and their coverts 

 ashy brown, the inner webs with bar-like indentations of rufescent white, and all with pale tips ; rump, upper 

 tail-coverts, and tail clear ashy blue, with a broad subterminal blackish bar across the latter; edge of forehead, 

 lores, throat, and the space between the cheek-stripe and the ear-coverts buff- white, the latter more or less shaded 

 with ashy ; beneath, from the throat, rufescent white, in some specimens isabelline grey, the feathers of the chest 

 and upper breast with dark brown striae, and those of the breast and flanks with terminal drop-shaped spots ; the 

 lower parts and under tail-coverts unspotted, the thighs being, as a rule, more rufous than the abdomen : under 

 wing-coverts marked with pointed central spots. 



The above is a description of a fully-aged bird, in which a bluish cast often pervades the entire upper surface. 



In a slightly younger stage of adult plumage, and one in which most birds are procured in Ceylon, the head is more or 

 less washed with rufous, the markings of the back and wing-coverts are larger, and the rectrices, though blue, 

 present in various degrees a certain amount of barring ; in some this appears on the central feathers, either at the 

 base or down most of the web, in others these are devoid of any markings, while the inner webs of the outer 

 feathers are crossed with narrow transverse lines. In this stage, however, the head is very variable, being not 

 always tinged with rufous as above stated, but, at times, as blue as in the oldest birds. 



Young. In the bird of the year the wing averages from 9'5 to 9-8 inches in the male, and slightly more in the female. 



Soft parts much the same as in adult ; cere slightly greenish in some ; legs and feet not so bright in hue. 



Head and upper surface dusky rufous, usually paler on the hind neck and rump than elsewhere ; feathers of the head 

 and hind neck with broad brown striae, and the back, rump, and wing-coverts crossed with broad bars of brown, 

 the shafts being of the same colour ; quills brown, tipped pale, most deeply on the secondaries, the inner webs 

 partially crossed from the edge with rufous or rufescent yellow ; tail dark rufous in some, yellowish rufous in 

 others, with continuous or interrupted bars of blackish brown, and a broad terminal band of the same, the outer 

 feathers paler than the rest ; forehead and round the cere fulvous, with dark shafts to the feathers, a broad, dark, 

 moustachial stripe crossing the gape from the lores ; ear-coverts fulvous-grey, shading off into brownish ; throat 

 and under surface rufescent white, palest on the abdomen and under tail-coverts, which, with the chin and gorge, 

 are unstreaked ; chest, breast, and flanks streaked with brown, the markings on the chest being broader than on 

 the breast, on the lower part of which they diminish to mesial lines ; under wing-coverts buff-w'hite, lined and 

 spotted (on the longer feathers) with dark brown. In a large series no constant variation can be found between 

 male and female, notwithstanding that females appear sometimes to have the thigh-coverts and lower parts more 

 striated than the other sex. 



In the next stage towards the mature dress the tail, after moult, becomes ashy blue, completely barred with brown, 

 the upper tail-coverts changing at the same time to bluish, and the bars on the back and wings fading out. Birds 

 are occasionally found with the tail composed, in the same moult, of the adult blue and immature red feathers. 



Adult female. Length, including culmen, 14-0 to 15-0 ; wing averaging more than the male's, but seldom exceeding the 

 highest of the above dimensions. In an immature example shot at Colombo it measures 10-5. 



Upper plumage of a browner rufous than the male ; in very old birds the head with a bluish cast, the stripes and bars 

 respectively of the head and back narrower and darker than in the young, and the latter slightly spear-shaped : in 

 some birds, as in the male, a faint ashy hue is perceptible on the upper surface ; upper tail-coverts bluish ashy, 

 with either spear-shaped streaks or narrow mesial stripes on the longer feathers, or the whole crossed with narrow 

 bars ; tail bluish ashy at the base and down the centre of all the feathers, the edges shading into rufous and 

 crossed on both webs' with narrow bars of blackish brown, incomplete at the base of the central feathers ; tip as in 

 the male ; under surface a paler, but generally finer rufescent than in the male, and more boldly streaked on the 

 chest and spotted on the breast ; in examples which are heavily barred above the flanks have transverse markings. 



Birds not fully adult betray their youth in the greater amount of rufous on the tail and its coverts. 



Obs. It has lately been ascertained that the female Kestrel is capable of acquiring a somewhat masculine plumage, a 

 pair having been shot at the nest at Aldenham, Hertfordshire, in 1874, in which the female had the tail bluish, 

 barred with black. An account of this remarkable occurrence is given by Mr. Sharpe in the ' Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society,' 1874, p. 580, pi. 68. 



Distribution— This well-known bird, the " Windhover " of the English farmer, migrates, in the cool season, 



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