46 BRITISH BIRDS. 
South India. It breeds in Mongolia, Japan, and China, and probably in 
Formosa and Hainan. It winters in Burma. 
A species having such a wide range as the Kestrel, breeding in such 
various climates, and consequently subject to the influence of different 
kinds of food and variations in the difficulty of procurimg it, in addition 
to the direct influence of variations in the amount of sunshine, in the 
degree of heat and cold, and in the amount of moisture, must of necessity 
develop subspecific forms or climatic races. In the islands off the coast 
of West Africa (Cape Verd, Canary, and Madeira) the humidity of the 
climate has produced a dark race, which, as is so often the case with msular 
forms, is also a small race. This subspecies has been called F. neglectus, 
and varies in length of wing from 8-4 to 9°4 inch, and has the dark spots on 
the upper parts larger than usual. On the continent size will not help us 
much in distinguishing the different forms, as they all vary im length of 
wing from 9°3 to 10'4inch. In birds breeding in Spain, Tangiers, Abyssinia, 
the Himalayas, Mongolia, and China, the slate-grey of the head and tail 
and the chestnut of the back are also dark ; and these differences have been 
considered by some writers to be of sufficient importance to constitute a 
subspecies, to which the name of F. interstinctus has been given. British 
birds, however, are somewhat intermediate, and are decidedly darker than 
examples from Siberia, which are the palest of all. In Japan the dark 
richly spotted form of the West-African islands reappears ; but as it retains 
the dimensions of its Chinese neighbour, whom it often visits in winter, it 
also has been dignified with a name, that of /. japonicus. In the moun- 
tains of South India, however, a resident Kestrel occurs, which is scarcely 
distinguishable either in size or colour from the West-African island form, 
and, if it be distinguished from I’. tinnunculus, must also bear the name of 
F. neglectus. It seems probable that the Hainan birds must also be 
referred to this subspecies. ‘There is nothing extraordinary in the fact of 
the extreme western form reappearmg in the extreme east. It is the 
normal state of things with the more northern Palearctic birds. 'The 
range of the Kestrel scarcely reaches a latitude high enough for an ex- 
treme arctic form to be produced; but its range in both the east and west 
is sufficiently south for a tropical form to be developed. 
In newly moulted birds the differences of colour of these local races are 
clearly perceptible in both sexes; but in abraded plumage they are not 
always easy to determine. Ornithologists are not agreed on the best way 
of cataloguing these climatic races; but no true naturalist can ignore 
them. ‘To give them each a separate binomial name is liable to lead to an 
exaggerated idea of their specific value; and the American ornithologists 
appear to have acted wisely in following the plan adopted by Linnzeus, of 
calling the local races varieties. The result, if it be scientifically accurate, 
is at the same time somewhat complicated. The British Kestrel bemg an 
