268 NOVITATES ZOOLOOICAE XXII. 1915. 



TfNNryCLL US AR TIU'RI. 



In his List of lliKrnnl Birrh of Prey, Appendix L, ]i. 15(), Gnrney sen. 

 described as a new species a Kestrel, which he named Tinnunculus artliiiri. 

 Sharpe, in his Hand-list of Birds, i. p. 277, enumerated it as a species, ])hicing; 

 it between the European Kestrel and its Indian representative saturatus. Thns he 

 appears to have had the same idea as Hcichenow and Erlanger, who used the name 

 arthuri for the richly colonred, dark Abyssinian form of onr Kestrel. In his 

 description of T. arthuri, however, Gnrney compared it with T. rupicoloides from 

 Sonth Africa, saying that it is nearest to the latter, but differs from it by its much 

 inferior size and certain differences in coloration. Wlien we came to the Norwich 

 Museum, we asked first of all to be shown TiniiHiicKlus artloiri, and as soon as we 

 saw it we exclaimed simultaneously " That is nothing but a diminutive rupicoloides, 

 and should be a subspecies of the latter." A closer examination proved our first 

 impression to be correct. It is not clear how Sharpe (who might have compared 

 the type), Heichenow, and Erlanger came to consider T. art/iari to be a dark form 

 pf tinnunculus, as not a word in its original description, nor the locality (Mombassa), 

 justify this point of view. 



As it is, arthuri differs from rupicoloides only by its generally jialcr coloration, 

 the closer barring of the npperside, and darker light spaces on the tail, as well 

 as inferior size. The beautiful T. Jicldi (Elliot, Field Columbian Mus., No. 2, 

 Or/i., p. 58, 1897) from Somaliland is i)aler, lighter, and larger again. T. rupi- 

 roloides, art/iuri,a.iu\ Jieldi nre, therefore, not species which might be placed here 

 or there and in various places in the genus to wliich they belong, as Sharpe did 

 {Hand-list, i. p. 277), but geographical representatives, subspecies of one species : 



Falco rupicoloides, 

 though not difficult to distinguish. Their nomenclature and distribution is as 

 follows : 



Falco rupicoloides rupicoloides Smith — South Africa. 



Falco rupicoloides arthuri (Gurney)— East Africa ; probably only the steppe 

 districts ; known to us from Mombassa and Machakos. 



Falco rupicoloides fieldi (Elliot) — Somaliland. 



In these birds the sexes do not differ, except in size ; both males and females 

 have the sides marked with dark cross-bars. 



The bird which was erroneously called arthuri by Sharpe, Heichenow, and 

 Erlanger, has been named by Neumann and myselt Falco (Ca-ckneis) tinnunculus 

 carlo {Journ. f. Orn. 11)U7. p. 592). 



II. 



THE SUBSPECIES OF FALCO PEREGRINLS. 



Just as in Cormis cora.r— Kleinschmidt and I were the first to jioint out clearly 

 the striking differences between the Spanish and Sardinian Ravens— ornithologists 

 have, until (jnite recently, almost universally recognised only one form of Peregrine 

 in Europe, or, if they had noticed that certain South-European birds differed from 

 the "typical" Peregrine, they united it with the one inhabiting the whole of 

 Africa Minor, which they called either punicus or barbarus— though Sharpe 



