1922.] the Near East and Tropical East Africa. 59 



Nicoll (Handbook B. Fio;ypt) records them as abundant on 

 passage in Egypt, but this is an error as all his birds belong 

 to the typical race. David and Oustalet (Oiseaux de la 

 Cvhine) state they breed in the hills of Pechili near Pekin, 

 and collect in September in large flocks [)revious to their 

 migration towards India, Init they doubt whether they breed 

 regularly in northern ('hiua. Neither Taczanowski nor 

 Przewalski mentions the species in eastern Siberia or 

 Mongolia. 



Finch-Davies (Ibis, l',>20, j). 021) refers many South 

 African birds to this race on the amount of blue on the wing. 

 Percival (ll)is, 1010, p. 708) observed large flocks of Lesser 

 Kestrels and Falco vespertinus amureusis migrating in com- 

 pany over the Kikuyu Forest in Kenya Colony, but fails to 

 designate the race of Lesser Kestrel. It is more than likely 

 that they were pekinensis. 



As no recent collector in China or eastern Asia has 

 observed or obtained the Lesser Kestrel, and its occurrence 

 in India is rare in winter, I am inclined to believe that the 

 breeding-range of pekinensis is very restricted in northern 

 C*hina, and that birds winter in India and Africa south to 

 Cape Colony, passing Kenya Colony en route. 



FALCO TINNUNCULUS. 



The Kestrels of the Near East are perhaps the most con- 

 fusing group of l)irds. 1 have examined a series of over 

 100 birds from the Tring collection, 29 from the Giza 

 Zoological Museum, and 28 birds collected by myself in 

 Palestine, Egypt, Crete, and eastern Africa. Also a series of 

 21 birds from southern Arabia and northern Somaliland. 



On colour alone, these birds are divisibh; into richly- 

 coloured birds with dark red thighs, and paler-coloured birds 

 whose under parts are whitish. Such ricldy-coloured birds 

 occur in England, Crete, Sardinia, throughout Egypt, 

 Palestine and Syria, the Sudan and Nigeria in winter, in 

 Morocco and Algeria in summer and winter, in southern 

 Russia (March), southern Arabia and northern Somaliland in 

 summer and winter, Turkestan, Mongolia, and India. I have 



