1952 



THE DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY 



lighter margins; and the tail feathers ashy gray, with a single broad black band 

 near the end, and the extreme tips white. Beneath, the general color is pale rufous 

 fawn, with dark spots or streaks, both of which disappear on the thighs and under 

 tail coverts; while the tail is grayish white with indistinct bars. The female, which 

 scarcely exceeds her consort in size, differs by the top of the head being reddish 

 fawn with dark streaks, the upper parts being banded with bluish black, and the 

 tail rufous with several incomplete black bars. The young males are nearly like 



THE KESTREL. 

 (One-third natural size.) 



the females, the tail changing blue first and the head last. Our illustration repre- 

 sents a female in which the bars are not so well defined as in some specimens. A 

 further specialization in the kestrel would involve a similar change of color in the 

 female; and to this there is an approximation in a dark southern race, where the 

 rump and part of the tail of the hen bird tend to blue. The kestrel ranges over the 

 whole of Europe and Northern Asia, migrating in winter into the north of China, 

 India, and Northeastern Africa, and occasionally straying into the western and 

 southern parts of the latter continent. It is replaced in the New World by the so- 



