108 
Eastern red-footed Hobby. Iris hazel; eyelids and bare skin, 
orange ; bill, dark orange; black at the tip ; tarsi and feet, dark 
orange. 
Numbers of these pretty Falcons may be seen during the sum- 
mer months about the open downs in the neighbourhood of 
Maritzburg; but are not, so far as I know, found there in 
winter. 
They hunt in company, sometimes as many as twenty to- 
gether, well scanning the ground for grasshoppers, and other 
insects, of which their food seems almost entirely to consist ; they 
do not generally remain long on the wing, alighting on any low 
plant, ant-heap, or on the level ground; in twos and threes. 
They are not particularly shy; one may get within fifty yards 
of them without much difficulty. They seem to prefer marshy 
ground to hunt over. 
The very curious circumstance of the occurrence in south- 
eastern Africa of this species, which had previously been known 
only as an inhabitant of Amuria and of Northern China, has 
been already mentioned in the Ibis (/oc. cit.) where a brief refer- 
ence to the specimens sent from Natal by Mr. Ayre was made. 
These specimens were three in number, two males and one 
female, all, I believe, adult. I have also received from my friend, 
Mr. Anderson, an adult male obtained at the Kuysna, on the 
south-eastern coast of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope; 
and I have had the opportunity of examining a female specimen 
in the British Museum, procured in South Atrica by Mr. Charles 
Livingstone, and believed to have been obtained near the River 
Shire. 
The examples from South-east Africa appear to me to be 
specifically identical with specimens of both sexes in the Nor- 
wich Museum obtained in Northern China, consisting of a male 
and female from Yoon Ying, near Pekin, and of two males from 
the neighbourhood of alien Bay. 
The question whether the red-footed Hobby of India, belongs 
to the present species, or to its Western congener, Hvythropus 
Vespertinus, 1s one which, in the absence of Indian specimens, 
T am unable to decide, and to which I would beg the attention 
of ornithologists resident in that country* (Ibis, 1866, p. 119). 
With regard to the distribution of H. Amurensis in south 
Africa, I may add that Mr. Anderson informs me, that he has 
obtained one example in Damara Land; where, however, LH. 
* Since the above was written, Mr. G. R. Gray has been good enough to 
tell me of a specimen in the British Museum brought from Nepal, which I 
agree with him in considering an immature female of #. Amurensis. 
