NOy-INDIGENOUS BRITISH BIRDS. 129 



Family FALCONID.-E. Genus Falco. 



Sub-family FALCONING. 



ORANGE-LEGGED HOBBY. 



Falco vespertinus, Lifincens. 



(British : Rare abnormal spring and autumn migrant.) 



Single Brooded. Laying season, May and June. 



Breeding area: North-western Palaearctic region. 

 The Orange-legged Hobby breeds throughout Russia, 

 south of about lat. 65°, in the Danubian provinces, and 

 in Hungary. Eastwards it breeds in South-western 

 Siberia, at least as far east as the valley of the Yenesay. 



Breeding habits : The Orange-legged Hobby 

 reaches its European breeding haunts during the last 

 half of April in the west, but is a week or so earlier in 

 the extreme south and east. It is a gregarious species 

 on passage, and to a great extent during the breeding 

 season too, the extent of the colonics depending a good 

 deal on the amount of accommodation available. The 

 principal breeding haunts of this Falcon are well-wooded 

 localities, especially parks, swamps covered with scattered 

 trees, pleasure-grounds, and large gardens. The Orange- 

 legged Hobby apparently never makes its own nest, but 

 selects the deserted one of a Crow, a Magpie, or a Rook, 

 in which to deposit its eggs. In rookeries it may be 

 said to breed in colonies, but elsewhere it lives in scattered 

 pairs simply because the nests it breeds in are isolated. 

 In a rookery as many as five or six nests are tenanted 

 in a single tree. I cannot find that these selected nests 

 undergo any alteration, but the lining is probably 

 removed. Of the habits of this Falcon at the nest and 

 during the pairing and incubating periods nothing 

 appears to have been recorded. The bird probably 

 pairs for life, and seems to visit certain places annually. 



K 



