Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/40

24 of fear that it almost allowed me to pick it up. Many years ago a pair of Laggars used to have their headquarters, and perhaps their nest, at the University Tower, and I sometimes see one there still. They build in January or February, on large trees, cliffs, or high buildings, and lay three or four eggs so thickly spotted and blotched with reddish-brown that sometimes there is little of any ground colour visible.

There is one other Falcon which must be mentioned, namely, the Kestril, which is very common all over India in the cold season and will be met with wherever there is open, grassy ground, like the Bombay Flats. It is about the size of the Sparrow Hawk and more easily recognised than most hawks by its colour. The back and wings are chestnut, or almost brick-red, but the quills are black and the tail is gray. The contrast is striking and unmistakable. The under parts are light-buffy, spotted with brown. The Kestril is also distinguished by its peculiar habit of hovering in air when looking for its prey of grasshoppers, lizzards, mice and larks. The Duke of Argyll has devoted three pages of "The Reign of Law" to an exposition of this performance. A few pairs of Kestrils seem to spend the year in India, making their nests on high cliffs on the mountains, but the majority of those which we see in the cold season are tourists. In Barnes' book the Kestril appears as Cerchneis tinnunculus, but I am glad to see tha,t Mr. Blandford has restored Jerdon's name, Tinnunculus alaudarius.

To the lay mind the word Eagle conveys the idea of a royal bird of gigantic size and noble aspect,