By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 347 
Stratton says they return regularly every summer to the enclosures 
in the vale below him: Mr. Marsh speaks of them as not un- 
common in the woods of Wilts, and has repeatedly had the young 
brought to him both in the neighbourhood of Chippenham, and at 
Winterslow, near Salisbury, and they have bred in the woods at 
Christian Malford ; moreover, I am aware of two separate localities 
to which these birds now return annually to breed, though, for 
obvious reasons, I think it better not to describe them too minutely. 
“ Red-footed Falcon,” (Fulco rufipes.) Very similar to the 
last species both in appearance and habits is the Red-footed or Red- 
legged Falcon, or Orange-legged Hobby, as it is variously called ; 
the principal distinguishing characteristics being the red colour of 
the legs and feet, (as its specific name implies,) and this distinction 
exists in both sexes and at all ages, though, in almost all other 
respects, the male and the female, the young and the adult differ 
widely from one another: like its congener described above, it 
prefers wooded and enclosed districts, and feeds on beetles and 
other insects as well as small birds, and has the same length of 
wing, and consequent rapidity and endurance of flight ; it is, how- 
ever, extremely rare in this country, its native haunts being the 
steppes of Russia, and the eastern portions of the Austrian domi- 
nions. Scarcely a dozen instances are recorded of its appearance 
in Britain, but of these, one is described in the Zoologist for 1848, 
as having occurred at Littlecote Park, near Hungerford, in 1825: 
it was seen by a countryman to be pursued and struck down by a 
raven, when he went up to it and caught it on the ground before 
it recovered ; and, according to his account, it laid an egg after its 
fall, which was broken. The peculiar markings of the hawk 
struck the author of the communication, who bought the bird of 
the countryman, and not being able to identify it with any of the 
English hawks which he knew, he made a drawing of it, suffi- 
ciently accurate to recognize it by: it was fortunate he did so, for 
the bird, which was very wild and untameable, escaped after a few 
days’ captivity, and was probably killed, as it had one wing clipped: 
subsequently, his memory being aided by the drawing, he recog- 
nized it as an Orange-legged Hobby, when he saw that bird at the 
342 
