ACCIPITRES. ( 20 ) FALCONID^E. 



THE HOBBY. 



Falco subbuteo. 



Like Larks when they the tyrant Hobby spy, 

 Some, wonder-struck, stand 'fix 'd, some fly. 



COWLEY. 



THE Hobby, which may be described as a Peregrine in 

 miniature, very seldom visits Berwickshire, and then appar- 

 ently only on migration, there being no record of its nest 

 having been found in the county. 



Sir Walter Elliot of Wolfelee mentions that when the 

 Berwickshire Naturalists' Club visited Lauder on the 24th 

 of June 1869, they saw in the museum of a local collector 

 Mr. Walter Simson, shepherd, Thirlestane Castle a 

 specimen of the Hobby which had been killed in that 

 neighbourhood ; x and Mr. John Ferguson records that two 

 examples were shot in the vicinity of Duns in 1874, one 

 of them being got at Kimmerghame. 2 



The Hobby possesses considerable powers of flight, and 

 was formerly used in falconry to take Larks and other small 

 birds. 



i Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, vol. vi. p. 18. 2 Ibid. vol. vii. p. 284. 



