THE FALCONS. 
187 
clouded eggs, is covered with small dots of rufous and larger 
blotches of chestnut. In some examples in the Museum the 
whole egg is uniformly clouded with brownish-red, so that 
there is scarcely any indication of mottling. Axis, 1 •4-1 '65 ; 
diam., i‘2. 
m. THE MERLIN. FALCO AiSALON. 
AliAy reWt;;/, Tunstall, Orn. Brit. i. p. 1 (1771); Macg. Brit. 
B. hi. p. 317 (1840); Newton, ed. Yarn Brit. B. i. p. 74 
(1871); Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. 83, pis. 380, 381 (1875); 
B. O. U. List Br. B. p. 103 (1883) ; Seebohm, Br. B. i. p. 
34(1883); Saunders, Man. Brit. B. p. 341 (1889); Ihl- 
ford. Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xvi. (1890), part xx. (1891). 
Falco reguhis, Pall.; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. p. 406 (1874)' 
Adult Male. — General colour above clear slaty-blue, paler on 
the rump and upper tail-coverts, with distinct black shafts to 
all the feathers; head dark slate-colour, with black shaft- 
stripes ; forehead, lores, and sides of face whitish, with black 
shaft-lines; eyebrow and nape strongly mixed with rufous ; tic 
ear-coverts with a grey tinge on the hinder part ; throat pure 
white ; sides of neck and under surface of body white, 
strongly washed with rufous, the feathers streaked with 
black down the middle, these stripes becoming narrower 
on the thighs and more distinct on the under tail-coverts ; 
under wing-coverts white, spotted and barred with black ; 
quills black, barred with white on the inner web, and washed 
with bluish-grey near the base of the outer web ; the inner 
secondaries bluish-grey like the back, and with the same black 
shafts ; tail slaty-blue, tipped with white, with a broad sub-ter- 
minal band of black on the inner web, and with remains of 
other black b.ands on the under surface; cere yellow; bill 
Vjluish horn-colour, the tip darker ; feet yellow, claws black ; 
iris dark brown. Total length, 10 inches; culmen, 07 ; wing, 
7-9; tail, 4's; tarsus, 1-45. 
Adult Female. — Like the male in plumage, but a trifle larger. 
I fancy that I was the first to point out, as I did in 1874, that 
the fully adult female of the Merlin resembles the male in 
plumage, and I still believe this to be a fact, though it must 
be difficult to prove the truth of it in England, where Hawks 
