206 FALCO TINNUNCULUS. 



to say. slid down to the brink of the precipice without 

 the least trepidation ; and getting- my heels and fingers 

 fixed as before, descended without experiencing much, 

 I may say any, difficulty. Glad was I, however, to find 

 myself once more at the base of the rock ; and gather- 

 ing up my knapsack, I washed my hands and feet, put 

 on my shoes and stockings, picked up some curious 

 porphyritic pebbles from the beach, and regaining the 

 highway, marched on to Bervie, glad enough that I had 

 seen the castle, the rocks, the jackdaws, and the kes- 

 trils, without troubling any one." 



The eggs of the kestrel are generally four, sometimes 

 five, of a roundish or very short elliptical form, nearly 

 equally rounded at both ends, pale reddish- orange, ir- 

 regularly dotted all over with deeper red, and often 

 having a few large blotches of reddish-brown. The 

 length of each of two specimens If inch, the larger 

 transverse diameter of one of them If, of another 1/^. 

 In form they vary from elliptical to regular ovate. I 

 have observed that after incubation the abdomen and 

 breast of the female sometimes become entirely bare 

 to a great extent. The young are at first covered with 

 white down. 



Young. — When the young are able to fly they pre- 

 sent the following appearance. The bill is light bluish- 

 grey, its tips yellowish-grey or horn-colour ; the irides 

 dusky, the cere pale greenish-blue, the feet yellow, the 

 claws brownish-black, with paler tips. The head and 

 hind neck are light brownish-red, longitudinally streak- 

 ed with blackish brown ; the back, wing-coverts, rump, 

 and tail, light red, but of a deeper tint than in the old 



