CEBCHNEIS AMUEENSIS. 



(THE AMURIAN KESTREL.) 



Falco vespertinus, Schrenk, Reis. Amurl.,V6g. p. 230 (1860). 



Erythropus vespertinus, Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. E. I. Co. Mus. no. 13, p. 14 (1854) ; Swinh. 



Ibis, 1861, pp. 253, 327, et P. Z. S. 1862, p. 315; Jerd. B. of Ind. i. p. 40 (1862); 



Hume, Rough Notes, i. p. 106 (1869); Jerd. Ibis, 1871, p. 243; Legge, Str. Feath. 



1873, p. 487 ; Hume, Str. Feath. 1875, p. 22. 

 Falco vespertinus, var. amurensis, Radde, Reis. Sibir. ii. p. 102, Taf. 1. figs. 1-3 (1863). 

 Erythropus amurensis, Gurney, Ibis, 1868, p. 41, pi. 2; Swinhoe, P. Z. S. 1870, pp. 436, 



448, 1871, p. 340, et Ibis, 1873, p. 96, et 1874, p. 425; Hume, Str. Feath. 1875. 



p. 22. 

 Tinnunculus amurensis, Gray, Hand-1. B. i. p. 23 (1869). 

 Falco radclei, Finsch u. Hartl. Vog. Ostafr. p. 74 (1870). 

 Cerchneis amurensis, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 445, et Str. Feath. 1875, p. 303 ; Legge, ibid. 



p. 362 ; Inglis, ibid. 1877, p. 6 ; Hume, ibid. p. 7. 

 Falco amurensis, Dav. & Oust. Ois. de la Chine, p. 34 (1877). 

 Le Kobez de V Amour, David & Oustalet. 

 The Eastern Bed-footed Kestrel, Radde' 's Kestrel, The Orange-legged Hobby, The Bed-legged 



Hobby, The Fed-legged Falcon of Indian writers ; White-clawed Kestrel, Blyth ; Ingrian 



Falcon, Lath, (apud Horsf.). 

 Karjanna, Karjoona, Hind. (Jerdon). 



Adult male. Length to front of cere 9-8 to 10-7 inches ; culinen from cere Oo ; wing 8'8 to 9-2 (in a South-African 

 example in the British Museum, 9-5); tail 4-75 to 5-0; tarsus 1-1 to 1-2; mid toe 0-95 to 1-0, claw (straight) 

 0-38. 



Iris brown ; cere (all but the tip of bill), orbital skin, and eyelid gamboge-yellow ; tip of bill dark leaden ; legs and feet 

 gamboge-yellow, claws whitish horn-colour. 



Head, hind neck, back, wings, and tail dark slate, the forehead darker than the crown, and the rump paler than the 

 back ; the interscapular region, scapulars, and shoulder of the wing suffused with blackish ; quills slate-grey, the 

 shafts black and the inner part and under surface of web brownish ; shafts of the tail-feathers brownish black; 

 cheeks, cheek-stripe, and ear-coverts concolorous with the head ; chin, throat, sides of neck, breast, and flanks 

 bluish ash-colour, palest on the throat, the shafts of the breast-feathers more or less conspicuously dark ; belly, 

 thighs, and under tail-coverts dark rufous ; under iving-coverts and axillary plume white, with dark shafts in 

 examples which have them conspicuously so on the breast. 



A younger stage of the adult phase has the throat and round the cheek-stripe whitish, and the under parts paler ashy 

 than in the above-described old dress ; the abdomen and under tail-coverts are also paler or yellowish rufous. 



Adult female. Wing 9 - 4 to 9 - 6 inches. 



Soft parts as in the male. 



Above leaden-grey, paling to bluish ashy on the rump and tail ; the head and nape suffused with brownish, and thr 

 feathers with dark shaft-stripes ; bases of the hind-neck feathers rufous-yellow, showing across that part ; back 

 and wing-coverts barred with brownish black ; quills blackish, the inner webs crossed with bar-like spots of whitish : 

 tail crossed with seven or eight blackish-brown bars and a broad subterminal band of the same. 



Forehead, throat, cheeks, and chest whitish buff ; lores and a narrow moustachial streak blackish; the throat unstreaked. 

 but the chest with mesial stripes, and the breast and flanks with arrow-headed bars of blackish brown ; abdomen, 

 thighs, and under tail-coverts pale rufescent yellowish, this hue extending further up the breast in some than in 

 others ; under wing-coverts white, barred and " lined " with blackish brown. 



