FALCO ELEONOR^E. 199 



Jaubert, in a plate containing three figures taken from 

 life. To shew however the difficulty there is attached 

 to this subject, I will copy the following from M. 

 Jaubert's Supplement, just published, written a year or 

 two after the above: — 



^^We owe to the kindness of M. Jules Verreaux a 

 skin of F. eleonora, characterised by an unicolorous 

 plumage of slate grey, denser on the mantle, wings, 

 rump, and tail, slightly fuliginous on the throat and 

 neck; all the feathers having the shafts darker and 

 approaching to black; a black spot in front of the eye 

 larger towards the base, where it forms a short mous- 

 tache, which loses itself in the neighbouring tints, etc." 



The plumage is, according to M. Verreaux, that of 

 the adult. What then are the plumages of a fuliginous 

 black with slate shades only on the back, which we 

 consider to belong to the old bird? Simply varieties? 

 Melanisms comparable to those of certain Buzzards, 

 according to Susemihl, who gives as the adult the one 

 we call three years old? The variety then must be 

 more common than the type, for all the specimens of 

 our collections killed in the south of France are more 

 or less black, but never slate grey." 



"One of these birds taken on the sea near the Bal- 

 earic Isles, and also placed in the Marseilles Museum, 

 has a plumage like that of an adult Hobby; blackish 

 brown above, yellowish white and russet below, with 

 long black streaks; rusty on the thighs and abdomen. 

 Though diifering from the others this plumage is also 

 considered to be that of three years, or the adult of 

 Susemihl, which comes to the same thing! We are then 

 obliged to admit that the blackish and slaty liveries are 

 varieties probably belonging to an advanced age. The 

 plumage of the Eleonora Falcon varies more than any 



