120 CERCHNEIS AMUEENSIS. 



Voting. In the British Museum are a pair of nestlings taken in China from the same nest — one with the wing 7-5, the 

 other 7'0 inches. They are not sexed ; but the larger of the two may be presumed to be the female. 



The presumed male is the darker in colour, the ground-colour of the under surface being rufous-buff ; the head and 

 nape brownish slate, the feathers with dark shafts ; the back, scapulars, and wing-coverts, as also the rump and 

 tail, paler slate-colour, the whole crossed with blackish-brown marks, and each feather with a deep cinnamon-rufous 

 tip ; on the hind neck there is a rufescent-buff collar, formed by the lateral edges of the feathers ; tail barred with 

 interrupted bands of dark brown, and a broader one at the tip ; quills slaty black, tipped with fulvous-white, and 

 the inner webs crossed with transverse spots of white ; thighs unmarked. 



Cheeks and a small moustachial stripe and ear-coverts blackish ; chin and throat buff-white, deepening into the more 

 rufescent hue of the under surface ; the breast with broad central drops of blackish to the feathers, which change 

 into arrow-headed bars on the lower flanks. 



The female has the tail less barred than the male, and the under surface buff, with broad spear-headed mesial marks 

 on the chest-feathers, and the markings on the breast have the same character, instead of being plain stripes as in 

 the male; the thigh-plumes marked with dark mesial lines. 



As the bird grows older the rufous margins fade, and the barrings become more subdued, the bird of the year presenting 

 a cinereous-brown hue on the head, hind neck, upper back, and scapulars ; the feathers of the upper parts with 

 pale margins and dark shafts, and those of the wing-coverts and scapulars fulvous-grey, while the tips of the rump 

 and upper tail-coverts are greyish white and tolerably deep ; the primaries and secondaries are tipped with white, 

 the latter more deeply, the quills are dark cinereous brown, the inner webs crossed with white, similarly to the 

 adult female : tail bluish ashy, with 10 or 12 narrow brown bars. 



The cheeks, ear-coverts, a space behind the eye, and a more or less developed moustachial streak blackish ; throat, sides 

 of the neck, and under surface to the lower breast in some birds quite white, while others have these parts buff ; 

 the abdomen, thighs, and under tail-coverts are likewise variable from buff to almost white ; forehead whitish ; 

 the throat and sides of the neck are unmarked, but the breast is striped with bold dashes of blackish brown, 

 almost covering the feathers on the chest and upper breast ; flanks often barred with the same. 



Tin- Ceylonese specimen mentioned below Mas a male in this stage of plumage ; the lower parts were scarcely tinged 

 with buff. 



The young of both sexes at this stage much resemble the adult female, except that the under tail-coverts and abdomen 

 are often nearly white ; these latter parts vary, however, considerably in birds of the first year. 



Obs. The transition in the male bird from the grevish barred upper plumage to the adult dark slate is complete in 

 one moult ; but the throat in several examples that I have examined has remained white, probably not acquiring the 

 bluish ash-colour until the next season. The distinguishing character in this species consists in the white under 

 wing-coverts, which suffice to separate it from the western Bed-footed Kestrel, which has those parts dusky bluish 

 grey: this character was first pointed out in 18G3 by Eadde, previous to which time the two species were 

 confounded : and the bird spoken of by Jerdon, Horsfield, and others must be referred to the eastern race, and not 

 to E. vespertinus, the western form. This latter has not been found nearer India than the Tumlienshian Steppe, 

 Western Siberia. There Eadde procured it, and, travelling eastwards, met with no species of Eed-footed Kestrel 

 until C. amurensis appeared in Amoorland. 



Distribution. — The occurrence of this pretty little Kestrel in Ceylon is perhaps one of the most interesting 

 in the history of Ceylon ornithology. The solitary example procured by myself at Trincomalie in December 

 L872, and recorded as Erythropus vespertinus (Joe. (At.), is the only one that has yet been found in the island 

 or in any part of Asia so far to the south. It was a straggler which found its way under the influence of the 

 north-east wind to the shores of Ceylon ; and, judging by the thin state of its body, had only just terminated 

 its flight across the briny deep or down the east coast of India. 



The eastern Red-footed Kestrel has its head-quarters in Amoorland and North China, and in the cold 

 season performs,, perhaps, the most singular migration of any known bird, encroaching on the path of its near 

 ally, Ccrcli. vespertina (with which it was long confounded, until Iladde discovered the differences between the 

 two species), and actually reaching the southernmost regions of Africa. It passes from its home in North 

 ( 'hina into Burundi, Nepaul, and other sub-Himalayan provinces, Lower Bengal, Central India, and terminates, 

 as a rule, its Indian migration in the Nilghiris, in which hills Jerdon killed it, but where, I imagine, it is very 

 rarely seen. Mr. Hume has received it from Madras. From the north of India the migratory stream sets 

 westward through Asia to the east coast of Africa, along which it flows to the Zambesi district, and thence 

 southward to Natal, Damara Land, and Cape Colony. It was first known from Natal, whence Mr. Ayres 



