192 BIRDS OF EGYPT. 



178. Falco subbuteo, Linn. Hobby. 



The Hobby is by no means plentiful in Egypt and Nubia. 

 Von Heuglin (Orn. N. O. Afr. p. 34) mentions three in- 

 stances of its capture in that country ; and I have a specimen 

 procured for me at Damhanhoor in April. 



Forehead buff, upper plumage dark slaty grey, with a patch 

 of ferruginous colour on the nape ; inner web of the quills 

 barred with ferruginous buif ; a moustachial stripe, feathers 

 under the eye, and ear-coverts black ; underparts buff, 

 changing to rufous on the thighs and under taU-coverts ; 

 crop, chest, and under wing-coverts strongly mottled with 

 dusky ; cere and legs yellow ; beak horn-blue ; irides brown. 



Entire length 13 inches ; culmen 0'7 ; wing, carpus to tip, 

 10-5; tarsus 1-4. 



The description is taken from my Egyptian specimen. 



Fig. Sharpe & Dresser, B. of Eur. Part iv. 



179. Falco concoloe, Temm. Sooti/ Falcon. 



Von Heuglin observes (Ibis, 1860, p. 409), in speaking 

 of this bird under the name of F. horus, " I have observed 

 this species rarely in the rocky deserts of Egypt and Nubia. 

 A. Brehm has described a young specimen killed by myself 

 in August 1852, near the so-called 'Fossil Forest,' at the 

 Mokattam Mountains." In the Ibis for 1871 (p. 42) I in- 

 cluded F. eleonora among the birds of Egypt on the authority 

 of Von HeugUn (Ibis, 1860, p. 408), who writes of that 

 species : — " Rare and only as a migrant bird in Nubia ; " 

 however, in his large work on the ornithology of North- 



