172 
ORNITHOLOGY. 
that time the Viceroy was at Delhi with a large following, 
and several native nobles came to the dnrbar. I showed 
this Falcon to many of them and to all their falconers, and 
only one, an old man from Khyrabad in Oudh, admitted 
having seen the like before/'' 
There is, we think, no question, that the bird referred 
to belonged to the present species, and that it is a rare 
visitant to Northern India. 
Dr. Jerdon has united my new species to Falco milvipes 
of Hodgson. Whether this will turn out to be correct I 
cannot say, but we have at present in India Mr. Hodgson's 
drawings of the last-named bird, and it seems to me to be 
entirely distinct. Mr. J. H. Gurney thinks that Falco 
Hendersoni may be only a stage of F. sacer, and I am 
indebted to his kindness for the following note : " The 
specimen called F. Hendersoni is, I think, the same species 
as that represented in Mr. Hodgson^s collection of draw- 
ings in the British Museum under the title of F. milvipes. 
I believe it to be a plumage which F. sacer attains at a 
certain period, probably when about five years old. Whether 
it always attains it I cannot, however, say. Dr. Bree, in 
vol. i. of his ' Birds of Europe ^ (p. 32), speaks of a similar 
specimen then living in the Zoological Gardens, which 
assumed most of these transverse markings while in the 
gardens. Dr. Bree gives the locality of this specimen as 
' Turkey,' which is an error, as it really came from Tarsus. 
It lived at the gardens between two and three years, and is 
now in the Norwich Museum ; the sex was not ascertained, 
but it seems to be a male. It only differs from Falco 
Hendersoni in being less rufous on the head and nape and 
more spotted on the breast, and the tail is not quite so 
distinctly barred. Similar specimens obtained in Nepal by 
Mr. Hodgson are in the British Museum. The Norwich 
Museum contains two specimens, which are evidently 
passing from the ordinary plumage of F. sacer into this 
striated dress. These are a male from the Volga and a 
male from Athens, judging by the measurements.'^ 
Dimensions of Male.^ — [The length was recorded from 
In this and all other cases in which the contrary is not expressly 
