206 ALTJCN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



Characters To distinguish the Lesser Kestrel from the 

 ordinary Kestrel of England, the most distinctive characters 

 are the whitish claws, and the uniform rufous back in the 

 male, while the female can only be told from the female of 

 C. tinnunculus by its smaller size and by its whitish claws. 



Range in Great Britain. This species certainly deserves a 

 place in our avifauna, for, although it was not admitted to 

 that rank in 1871 by Professor Newton, since that date so 

 many examples of the Lesser Kestrel have been identified 

 within British limits, that one may reasonably believe that it 

 occurs more often than is generally suspected, and that it is 

 often mistaken for the Common Kestrel. At least four instances 

 of the occurrence of the Lesser Kestrel in Great Britain are 

 known to have taken place. The first was shot in Yorkshire in 

 November 1867, and in May, 1877, another adult male was 

 captured near Dover. Since then it has been obtained near 

 Shankill in Co. Dublin, in February, 1891, and also in the Scilly 

 Islands in March of the same year. Two specimens which had 

 been captured at sea in the Mediterranean, in April, 1894, 

 escaped from their captors, one in Northumberland and the 

 other in Belfast, and Mr. Robert Patterson wrote to the " Ibis" 

 to notify the fact, in case a Lesser Kestrel should be shot, but 

 I have not heard that they were ever seen again. 



Range outside the British Islands. The Lesser Kestrel winters 

 in South Africa, whither it goes with the flocks of other small 

 insect-eating Hawks. It returns in the spring to Europe and 

 is plentiful in the Mediterranean countries, arriving in February 

 in Spain. A few pass the winter in the south of Europe. It 

 is only an occasional visitor to Southern France, but has been 

 taken in Germany and in Heligoland, as well as in the British 

 Islands. Its eastern range extends to Central Asia, and it has 

 of late years become very numerous in the district of Orenburg 

 in Southern Russia. 



Habits. In the countries of Southern Europe, and especially 

 in Spain, the Lesser Kestrel is a very common bird, commenc- 

 ing to breed about the end of April, and laying its eggs about 

 the middle of May. Its food, according to Mr. Howard Saun- 

 ders, consists of insects, especially cockchafers and other beetles, 



