Avifauna of Italy. 189 



second instance of the occurrence of tiiis Falcon in Italy 

 proper : a first specimen was found in the market at Rome 

 by Salvadori in 1853, and is in his collection ; its description 

 tallies well with our specimen. This species has a very good 

 feature in its short toes in comparison with those of the pere- 

 grinoid Falcons. The type, shot in Dalmatia, is in the Leyden 

 Museum ; and I have lately seen two more of Baron Feldegg's 

 specimens in the Prague iMuseum, also from Dalmatia ; they 

 still bear SchlegeFs labels, and the date of capture (1829). 



Falco eleonor^, Gene. 



Our collection has a fine series from Vacca and South 

 Antioco (Sardinia). The light and dark forms evidently 

 breed together; and two of my dark specimens are males. 



Circus cineraceus (Montag.). 



This is a very rare species with us. I possess three speci- 

 mens—an adult male, shot at Pigna d^ Andorra (Veutimiglia) 

 on the 1st of May 1878, and two young birds, both males, 

 one shot at Genoa in September 1875, the other at Greve, 

 south of Florence, in June 1873. 



Glaucidium passerinum (Linn.). 



This is a rare species, and only occurs in our higher Alps. 

 I have seen three specimens— two from the Italian Tyrol, one 

 of which I possess ; the third, in Count Ninni's collection at 

 Venice, is from the Alps above Belluno. 



Carine noctua (Scop.). 



This is a very common bird all over Italy, and generally 

 used as a decoy for catching small birds with bird-lime; it 

 varies much in size and colour, and often presents interme- 

 diate stages between the two extremes, C. noctua and C. 

 glaux ; I therefore believe that the latter cannot be considered 

 a distinct species. 



Nyctala tengmalmi (Gm.). 



A rare species with us. Our collection at Florence pos- 

 sesses two specimens— one shot near Nice on the 19th of No- 

 vember 1876, the other at Pinerolo in the winter of 1860 • 

 the latter is a female, as is probably the former also. 



