TINNUNCULUS ALAUDARIUS. 81 



nest ; and on the next day, or morning following, two men took these 

 eggs out of it, using a rope. 



§ 160. r/^/Te.— Sutherlandshire. From Mr. W. Dunbar, 1850. 



§ 161. 0;^?.— England (?). From Mr. J. Green's Collection, 

 1851. 



§ 162. T/tree.— England {?). From Mr. J. Green's Collection, 

 1858. 



One of these is an interesting egg, from its great resemblance to 

 eggs of the Sparrow- Hawk. 



§ 163. r//ree.— England (?), May, 1853. From Mr. J. Green's 

 Collection. 



§ 164. Four. — Petaja-vaara, Kemi Lappmark, about N. lat. 68°, 

 May, 1857. 



On the 23rd of July 1857 Nicolai brought these four eggs and 

 said they belonged to a very shy, strange kind of Hawk, that flies 

 high up from its nest, and that stands in the air in one place, and 

 then changes its place. The nest was in a dry Scotch fir, three or 

 four fathoms from the ground. It was found before the 30th of 

 May. In August, the boy Gustaf has explained to me that it is a 

 Hawk quite strange to the country : he does not know about its 

 hovering, but it flies away from its nest, and sits to watch on a taU 

 tree, in a manner quite difl'erent from Pouta-Haukka [Falco asalon] . 

 Nicolai had been before asked by me about this bird, and he said he 

 had seen it once or so. On looking at these eggs among some thirty- 

 eight Merlins', I see they are not larger than the largest of them, 

 but are of a yellower red, or at least have a difl'erent look. 



[On the whole, I have very little doubt that the eggs above-mentioned 

 were rightly assigned by Mr. WoUey to the Kestrel. In his < Catalogue of 

 Egg-s ' for 1858 (p. 10), he suggests, and with probability, that the " unusual 

 numbers of several kinds of mice " had attracted this species so far beyond its 

 usual limits. Previously to 1857, he was aware of only one instance of its 

 occurrence north of the Gulf of Bothnia. That happened on the 13th of Sep- 

 tember 1855, when he and I were approaching Ilaparauda, on the Swedish 



G 



