Miscellaneous. 75 
However, as many completely differentiated birds in all probabi- 
lity existed even in the Triassic epoch, and as we possess hardly any 
knowledge of. the terrestrial reptiles of that period, it may be re- 
garded as certain that we have no knowledge of the animals which 
linked reptiles and birds together historically and genetically, and 
that the Dinosauria, with Compsognathus, Archeopteryx, and the 
struthious birds, only help us to form a reasonable conception of 
what these intermediate forms may have been. 
In conclusion, I think I have shown cause for the assertion that 
the facts of paleontology, so far as birds and reptiles are concerned, 
are not opposed to the doctrine of evolution, but, on the contrary, are 
quite such as that doctrine would lead us to expect ; for they enable 
us to form a conception of the manner in which birds may have 
been evolved from reptiles, and thereby justify us in maintain- 
ing the superiority of the hypothesis that birds have been so ori- 
ginated to all hypotheses which are devoid of an equivalent basis 
of fact. 
MISCELLANEOUS, 
Occurrence of Tinnunculus cenchris in Britain, 
By W. 8. Datxas, F.L.S. 
Tuts Museum has just been fortunate enough to obtain a fine 
specimen, killed within a few miles of York, of a species of Falcon, 
the occurrence of which in this country has, I believe, never before 
been authentically recorded,—namely, the little Kestrel of South- 
eastern Europe, Tinnunculus cenchris (Naum.). The specimen, which 
is a mature but apparently not an old male, was presented to the 
Museum by Mr. John Harrison, of Wilstrop Hall, near Green Ham- 
merton, who shot it upon his farm at that place, after having ob- 
served it for some little time flying about. The date, he thinks, was 
about the middle of last November; but of this he took no note, as 
he at first thought that the bird was merely a small and curious 
variety of the common Kestrel. It, however, presents all the dis- 
tinctive characters of Tinnunculus cenchris, among which the yel- 
lowish-white claws may be mentioned as affording an easy means of 
identifying the bird. 
Mr. Graham, of York, to whose intervention the Museum is in- 
debted for the acquisition of this interesting specimen, has informed 
me that, on a recent excursion of his, he saw another example of 
this species, in the possession of the Rey. Charles Hudson, of Trowell, 
near Nottingham. On my writing to that gentleman, he kindly 
informed me that the specimen of the ‘small Kestrel”? had been in 
his possession for about eight years, and that he purchased it from 
a joiner named Brown, formerly living at Thorpe Hall, near Brid- 
lington, who was an enthusiastic collector of birds, and in the habit 
of preparing them for people in that neighbourhood. Brown’s ac- 
count of the bird, which he denominated the ‘* American Falcon,” 
