Falco soloensis Latham, Gen. Hist. (1821), 1, 209.
Astur soloensis Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1874), 1, 114,
pl. 4, fig. 1; Hand-List (1899), 1, 250; Oates, Cat. Birds' Eggs
(1902), 2, 245; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 41.
Basilan (McGregor); Cagayancillo (McGregor); Luzon (Whitehead);
Mindanao (Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester, Goodfellow). China and
Indo-Chinese countries; in winter to Malay Peninsula, Indo-Malayan
Islands, and Moluccas.
"Adult.--The adult plumage appears to be gained by a gradual mersion
of the rufous stripes on the breast. Above light bluish gray, some
of the feathers margined with darker gray; sides of face and neck
gray like the head, but a little more dingy; under surface of the
body pale buffy vinous, the throat, flanks, and thighs, as well as
the under wing- and tail-coverts, white, with a slight grayish shade
on the sides of the breast; quills black externally, shaded with ashy
gray, under surface white at base of inner web, but having no distinct
bars above or below; tail dull bluish gray above, ashy white beneath,
with four or five indistinct cross-bands of dark brown, a little
plainer underneath, but these not strictly continuous. Cere yellow;
gape and orbits yellowish; bill black, lead-color at base; feet yellow;
iris yellow. Length, 300; culmen, 19; wing, 200; tail, 137; tarsus, 48.
"Observation.--A specimen from the Philippines, nearly adult in every
respect, is much deeper slate-color above, and far more ruddy and
vinous below, than the one described.
"Young.--Above brown, with rufous edgings to the feathers, a little
broader on the upper tail-coverts, the sides of the neck washed with
rufous, the nape mottled with white; crown blackish, an ill-defined
eyebrow and fore part of the cheeks white, narrowly lined with
blackish brown; the ear-coverts brown, slightly washed with dull
rufous; throat buffy white, with a moustachial line on each side
and a median streak of brown; rest of under surface buffy white,
the chest broadly streaked and the breast and flanks barred with
pale rufous; under tail-coverts white; under wing-coverts clear
buff, the lowest ones spotted with blackish; quills dark brown,
slightly tipped with whitish, very indistinctly barred above with
darker brown, underneath buffy white at the base of the inner web,
indistinctly barred with dark brown, visible only on the inner webs;
tail ashy brown, whitish at tip, crossed with five bars of darker
brown, the under surface whitish ashy, the cross-bars more distinct,
except on the outer web, where they are almost obsolete." (Sharpe.)
"Met with only in Mindanao, where it is not at all common." (Bourns
and Worcester MS.)
Male specimen from Cagayancillo: Bill black, bluish at base; iris
dark brown; cere and legs buffy yellow; nails black. Length, 285;
wing, 190; tail, 131; culmen from base, 20; tarsus, 41.