of Western Greece. 381 



of Miuerva's noblest fane^ and in the rocks and crannies of that 

 most ancient wall, in which so many nations have had a hand, from 

 the days of the Pelasgi to those of the Venetians and the Turks. 

 The traveller, after he has paid his devotions to the Parthenon 

 and Erechtheum, and after he has feasted his eyes upon the 

 magnificent panorama which that memorable spot commands, 

 can hardly fail to notice with admiration the evolutions of these 

 elegant little Hawks, which are hovering above him and below 

 him in every direction. Most of the villages in the marshy 

 plain near Mesolonglii have their colony of F. cenchris, and 

 notably those in the neighbourhood of the Phidaris, where the 

 insects abound on which they feed. Each of the favoured vil- 

 lages will have from half a dozen to a dozen pair. They breed 

 generally under the tiles of a house, sometimes in a position 

 where it is no easy matter to introduce the hand. There is no 

 regular nest, but the eggs (four, and rarely five, is the comple- 

 ment) are placed in a depression upon the bare wall amongst 

 bits of lime mixed with the hard parts of coleopterous insects. 

 Incubation commences about the middle of May; and if the eggs 

 are removed they speedily lay again, the second time mostly 

 three eggs. In size, the egg is considerably smaller than that of 

 the Common Kestrel ; but it appears subject to pretty much the 

 same varieties of colour, being on the whole perhaps somewhat 

 lighter. 



This species is very partial and gregarious in its breeding. 

 Late in May 1859 we found four or five nests in one group of 

 farm-buildings at Voukhori. Near the same place there is a 

 ruined stone tower, — a remnant of the very few habitations of 

 the Turkish period which have survived the sweeping devastation 

 of the war of independence. It was burnt about thirty-five years 

 ago, and is now a mere shell : bits of the blackened beams still 

 stick out of its tottering walls, partially preserving the window- 

 less apertures which wei'e intended to admit air and light when 

 the building possessed a roof. An ugly dangerous old edifice it 

 is, — not time-worn and venerable, but looking like a half-picked 

 skeleton reared up on end, whose collapse may occur at any mo- 

 ment. This is the abode of the largest colony of the Little Kestrel 

 which we ever found breeding together. Though so near the 



