MERLIN. KESTREL. 21 



FALCO ^SALON, Gmelin. 



MERLIN. 



The Merlin still continues to visit us in autumn, 

 though in small numbers, appearing chiefly in the month 

 of October, but specimens are occasionally met with 

 throughout the winter, and sometimes, though rarely, in 

 March. Adult birds of both sexes have been always con- 

 sidered rare, more especially the elegant little males with 

 their "pinions of glossy blue." The following are the 

 only examples in full plumage that have come under 

 my notice of late years : — an adult female, in my own 

 collection, shot in a garden on the Earlham-road, near 

 this city, in October, 1852; an old male in very beautiful 

 plumage killed at Winterton, in October, 1856; and 

 another at Melton, near Norwich^ in October, 1859. 

 Several of these little hawks were observed in different 

 parts of the county during the intense frosts in the 

 winter of 1860-1, but apparently the only specimen 

 obtained was a fine male, killed at Shottesham, on 

 the 16th of January. In the following winter, however, 

 of 1861-2, when the weather was almost equally severe, 

 an adult pair were killed in January, at Merton, and a 

 female, also adult, about the same time, at Martham. 



FALCO TINNUNCULUS, Linn^us. 

 KESTEEL. 



The Kestrel, in spite of all its persecutors, is still, I am 

 happy to say, a common resident amongst us, though by 

 no means so numerous as in the south of England, where 

 three or four may be frequently seen at a time circling 



