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Birds of Celebes: Falconidae. 
abdomen marked with drop- and arrow-liead spots of black; under wing-coverts 
white or ocbraceous buff spotted like the under surface. 
Adult male. Like the female, luit both above and below less plentifully spotted and banded 
with black; tail clear smoke-grey, crossed only by the broad subterminal black band. 
“Lis brown; bill greyish blue; cere and skin round the eyes yellow; feet deep 
citron-yellow, claws black" i Jf. 2). 
Young. Appears to differ little from the female. 
Measurements. Wing 210 — 240 mm; tail 160; tarsus 43—44; culmen from cere 15—16. 
Attention was called as long ago as 1866 by Schlegel to local deviations 
of coloration, when it was pointed out that the supposed sj^ecimen from Borneo 
and two from Timor and Flores resjiectively agreed with those from Celebes, 
while the more strongly coloured race of Halmahera was also represented in 
the Leyden Museum in specimens from the neighbouring islands of Morotai, 
Ternate, March, Tidore and Batchian. 
In a good series intermediate specimens may occur in localities indicated 
for the pronounced races. For instance, we have one from the Minahassa, N. 
Celebes, which by its dark tawny brown tints approaches three from Halmahera, 
but the under wing-coverts are lighter. 
A male from Timorlaut (Nr. 6693) appears to have a somewhat greyer 
head and the spots on the back smaller than in any others, but, as the speci- 
men is a bad one, it is difficult to form a good judgment of its characters. This 
may be a hidden sub-species. Schlegel (c II j mentions that the Flores specimen 
also has smaller and fcAver si>ots on the upperside. 
In Borneo the dark Japanese form of the Common Kestrel (Tinnunculus 
alaudarins) occurs in winter (Everett, List B. Borneo, in J. Str. Branch 11. A. 
S. 1889, 186), and the same species — probably also the same local form of 
it — has been obtained near Luzon at sea (Finsch & Conrad, Verb. Z B. 
Ges. Wien, 1873 June 4). The statement, therefore, of Horsfield (Tr. Z. S. 
1821, XIII, 13.5) that F. tinnunculus belongs also to .Java is likely enough to 
be true, although his note has always been taken as referring to T. moluccensis. 
The food of the Moluccan, like that of the Common Kestrel is pretty 
varied. In Celebes Salomon Muller noted that it fed on “mice, small lizards 
and birds, grasshoppers etc.”; v. Rosenberg speaks of it as “ein Hauptinsekten- 
jager”; Meyer observed that it imeyed on little birds. It is possible for a bird 
with so varied a diet as this to remain stationary in a tropical island. As the 
numerous dates recorded by Schlegel and others show, the species occurs all 
the year round in Celebes, where it is extremely plentiful, and from a note 
of Dr. Fischer, recorded by Mr. Pleske, it is present also throughout the 
year in Ternate. Consequently, it is not surprising that in these two neigh- 
bouring localities distinguishable subsjiecies have arisen. 
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