“Adult female.—Similar to the male, but larger and more richly colored; underneath deep ferruginous, paler on the chest, the cross barring narrow and irregular, sometimes confined to a small subterminal spot. Length, 419; culmen, 37; wing, 338; tail, 168; tarsus, 51.

“Young male.—Above brownish, the feathers edged with fulvous, especially distinct on the wing-coverts and secondaries; hinder neck marked with pale tawny; lower back and rump alternately barred with ashy and dark brown, the subterminal bar being somewhat triangular in shape; tail brown, similarly barred with ashy and tipped with fulvous; quills dark brown, with paler edgings; under surface buffy white, inclining to deep fawn on the breast and abdomen, which are longitudinally streaked with blackish brown, the flanks, under wing-coverts, and axillars barred with the same color. Cere, bill, and feet paler than in the adults.

“Young female.—Brown, head and cheeks blackish; feathers of upper surface spotted and tipped with rufous-fawn; underneath deep buff, inclining to rufous on the abdomen, the streaks on the chest dart-shaped, on the abdomen oval, all very broad and distinct.” (Sharpe.)

200. FALCO ERNESTI Sharpe.
ERNEST’S FALCON.

Luzon (Heriot, Whitehead); Negros (Keay, Whitehead); Sibuyan (McGregor[22]); Siquijor (Celestino). New Guinea; Greater Sunda and Fiji Islands.

Diagnosis.—Similar to Falco melanogenys but blacker; beneath everywhere shaded with ashy gray; wing-lining and axillars black, crossed with narrow white bars. Length, 394 mm.; wing, 295; tail, 140; tarsus, 48.[23]

“The adult male [collected by Hose at 1,400 meters on Mount Dulit, Borneo] is a remarkably beautiful specimen, and is evidently of the same race of peregrine as Mr. Pretyman’s bird from the Lawas River, but is not quite so red on the chest. The closeness of the barring of the under wing-coverts and axillars is remarkable and gives the species a much blacker look than F. melanogenys while no specimen of the last name falcon in the [British] Museum has the under tail-coverts and thighs bluish gray like the sides of the body. Whether Falco ernesti (as I have named the bird, after Mr. Ernest Hose) is confined to Borneo I can not yet tell, but I think that it is very likely to be found to be the resident form of all the Indo-Malayan Islands, as a specimen procured by Mr. Maitland-Heriot in Manila seems certainly referable to it.” (Sharpe.)

Grant says: “In adults of F. ernesti, though the breast is occasionally washed with fulvous, the sides, flanks, and belly are dark slate-gray or bluish gray, and the whole of the under surface below the crop is thickly covered with rather wide, close-set black bars, giving these parts a very dark appearance.”