FALCO MILVIPES. 



(SHANGHAE, FALCON.) 



Falco milvipes, Hodgson, in Gray's Zool. Misc. p. 81 (1844, descr. nulla). 



Falco milvipes, Hodgs., Jerdon, Ibis, 1871, p. 240. 



Falco hendersoni, Hume, Ibis, 1871, p. 407. 



Hierofalco salcer, Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. i. p. 417 (1874, partim). 



Hierofalco hendersoni, Hume, Stray Feathers, vii. p. 327 (1878). 



Falco sacer, Dresser, B. of Eur. vi. p. 59 (1879, partim). 



Hierofalco milvipes (Hodgs.), Sharpe, 2nd Yark. Miss., Aves, p. 11 (1891). 



Gennaia hendersoni (Hume), Menzbier, Orn. d. Turkestan, part iii. p. 294 (1891). 



1 Gennaia salcer gurneyi, id. op. cit. p. 297 (1891). 



Balobau, Russian ; Chark, Persian ; Uetalgi, Persian (fide Radde) ; Aitalgu, Turki [fide 

 Scully). 



Figures notabiles. 



Hume & Henders. Lahore to Yarkand, pi. i. ; Dresser. B. of Europe, vi. pi. ccclxxvii. 



Ad. supra rufescente, plumis fusco transfasciatis : cauda rufescente, distincte fusco transfasciata, nee guttata : 

 corpore subtiis cervino-albido, conspicue nigro-fusco notato. 



Adult (Tarsus). Differs from Falco sacer in having the upper parts rufous, conspicuously barred with 

 blackish brown, and the tail is also similarly, distinctly, barred, and not marked with spots as in 

 F. sacer: bill bluish, black at the tip; cere, legs, and feet yellow. 



Obs. According to Mr. Blanford (Faun. Brit. Ind., Birds, iii. p. 422), "in young birds the rufous bars are 

 irregular and ill-marked, and those on the tail more or less imperfect. In this stage F. milvipes is very 

 like F. cherruff, but may generally be distinguished by some of the bars going quite across the tail- 

 feathers. A nestling from Tibet in the Hume collection, attributed to this species, has, however, the 

 tail absolutely unbarred." 



Mr. Hodgson appears to have been the first to give this form the name of Falco milvipes, but it 

 was not generally acknowledged as separable from F. sacer. In 1871 Mr. A. O. Hume again 

 described it as distinct, under the name of Falco hendersoni, from a single specimen, a male, 

 obtained by Dr. Henderson during the Yarkand Expedition on the 14th September, 1870, at 

 Kitchik Yilak, in undulating country just north of the Sanju Pass, and forty miles from Sanju, 

 where the plains of Yarkand may be said to commence. There were, Dr. Henderson remarks, 

 no trees or bushes about, but the climate was comparatively moist, and there was an abundance 

 of short grass, on the upper borders of which thousands of the Tibetan Snow-Pheasant (Tetrao- 

 g alius tibetanus) were observed. Other Falcons, apparently of this species, were noticed in the 

 immediate neighbourhood, but it was not seen elsewhere, and only the one specimen was 



