44 BRITISH BIRDS. 



except the thighs^ vent^ and under tail-coverts^ which are chestnut ; cere 

 and bare space round the eyes orange-red ; irides hazel ; bill orange at 

 base, dark horn-colour at tip ; legs and toes brownish red ; claws yellow, 

 darkest at tips. The adult female has the general colour of the upper 

 parts below the nape, including the tail, slate-grey, not so dark as in the 

 male, each feather broadly barred with darker grey. The wings are not 

 so silvery a grey as in the male ; their under coverts are chestnut, and the 

 quills are broadly barred with white on the inner web. The head, nape, 

 and the whole of the underparts are dull chestnut, paler on the throat ; the 

 feathers round the eye dark brown. Soft parts as in the adult male, but 

 paler; bill more uniform horn- colour. 



The young male has the general colour of the upper parts except the nape 

 slaty brown, each feather broadly margined with pale rufous. The quills 

 are dark brown, almost black, narrowly tipped and margined with huffish 

 white, and ovally barred with white on the inner webs. The tail is evenly 

 barred with rufous, less distinctly so on the two centre feathers. The 

 nape and entire underparts are pale buff, the former obscurely and the 

 latter broadly streaked with brown, except on the vent, under tail-coverts, 

 and thighs, which are uniform buff; the feathers round the eye brownish 

 black. Bill and cere horn-colour, paler on the lower mandible. Legs and 

 toes paler tha.n in adult birds. Lastly, the young female resembles the 

 young male ; but the stripes on the underparts are broader. 



It will thus be seen that the adult male bird may always be recognized by 

 its uniform slate-grey plumage, unbarred and unstreaked ; the young of 

 both sexes by the pale margins to the feathers of the upper parts, the barred 

 tail and broadly streaked pale underparts ; the fully adult female by her 

 uniform unspotted chestnut underparts. The young birds in first plumage 

 very closely indeed resemble young Hobbies ; but may always be distin- 

 guished by the row of conspicuous oblong white spots on the primaries, 

 and have the outside web of the outside tail-feather barred as well as the 

 inside web. The so-called young male figured in Dresser's ' Birds of 

 Europe ' is the not quite adult plumage of the female of the second year, 

 which still shows a few streaks on the underparts. Young Red-footed 

 Falcons may be distinguished from young Merlins by their thighs, which 

 in the latter species are streaked, and by the oblong spots on the pri- 

 maries of the former species, which in the latter are represented by pale 

 dull chestnut bars. 



^^^^^mmmiP'^^^ 



