140 BIRDS OF TUNISIA 



where Lord Lilford, Mr. A. B. Brooke and others, have found it 

 plentiful at different times ; and the small Greek islands near Naxos, 

 where Dr. T. Kriiper first met with it in 1862, and from whence I 

 have several examples. 



On the Italian mainland the Eleonoran Falcon has occuixed 

 occasionally, but is rare, as it also is in Sicily, and the Palermo Uni- 

 versity Museum possesses but a single example of the species obtained 

 in the island : this is a fine male specimen in adult plumage, which 

 was shot near Palermo on the 4th of August, 1891. 



Another example of this Falcon, which was brought alive to a 

 friend of mine in Palermo, in the spring of 1892 or 1898, was said to 

 have been captured at sea between the African and Sicilian coasts. 

 This bird lived in confinement for some time and appeared to be 

 very docile and tractable. 



Although evidently rare on the Sicilian coasts, the species is 

 probably less so on some of the smaller barren islands adjoining 

 Sicily. In August, 1882, Prof. Giglioli found a colony of about twelve 

 pairs of these birds on the small island of Laiupione, near Lampedusa, 

 the southernmost of the Italian islands, and took a nest contaming no 

 less than seven eggs (Avifauna Italica, p. 256). This is an unusually 

 large number of eggs, the ordinary complement of a clutch of this 

 species being three, and often only two. 



In some of its habits, as well as in its cry, the present species 

 resembles the Peregrine. 



Its food consists chiefly of small birds and small mammals, but it 

 is said to eat lizards, and even insects occasionally. 



I have no information regarding the nesting of the Eleonoran 

 Falcon in Tunisia, but according to various good authorities, the 

 species is a very late breeder and its nests and eggs, as a rule, are not 

 found until July and even August. Salvin, writing of the birds of 

 this species which he obtained at Lake Djendeli, says that the eggs in 

 their ovaries were but very slightly developed at the end of May. 



Clefts and holes in inaccessible cliffs are chosen as sites for the 

 nest, and the number of eggs laid, as already mentioned, is usually 

 two or three. 



An egg of the species in my collection from Lampione, kindly 

 given me by Prof. Giglioli, is of a pale reddish colour, dotted all over 

 with minute spots of a reddish-brown. It measures 43 x 32 mm. 



