46 BRITISH BIRDS. 



South India. It breeds in Mongolia, Japan, and China, and probably in 

 Formosa and Hainan. It winters in Burma. 



A species having such a wide range as the Kestrel, breeding in such 

 various climates, and consequently subject to the influence of different 

 kinds of food and variations in the difficulty of procuring it, in addition 

 to the direct influence of variations in the amount of sunshine, in the 

 degree of heat and cold, and in the amount of moisture, must of necessity 

 develop subspecific forms or climatic races. In the islands off the coast 

 of West Africa (Cape Verd, Canary, and Madeira) the humidity of the 

 climate has produced a dark race, which, as is so often the case with insular 

 forms, is also a small race. This subspecies has been called F. neglectus, 

 and varies in length of wing from 8'4 to 9'4 inch, and has the dark spots on 

 the upper parts larger than usual. On the continent size will not help us 

 much in distinguishing the different forms, as they all vary in length of 

 wing from 9'3 to 10*4 inch. In birds breeding in Spain, Tangiers, Abyssinia, 

 the Himalayas, Mongolia, and China, the slate-grey of the head and tail 

 and the chestnut of the back are also dark ; and these differences have been 

 considered by some writers to be of sufficient importance to constitute a 

 subspecies, to which the name of jP. inter stmctus has been given. British 

 birds, however, are somewhat intermediate, and are decidedly darker than 

 examples from Siberia, which are the palest of all. In Japan the dark 

 richly spotted form of the West-African islands reappears ; but as it retains 

 the dimensions of its Chinese neighbour, whom it often visits in winter, it 

 also has been dignified with a name, that of F.japonicus. In the moun- 

 tains of South India, however, a resident Kestrel occurs, which is scarcely 

 distinguishable either in size or colour from the West- African island form, 

 and, if it be distinguished from F. tinnunculus, must also bear the name of 

 F. neglectus. It seems probable that the Hainan birds must also be 

 referred to this subspecies. There is nothing extraordinary in the fact of 

 the extreme western form reappearing in the extreme east. It is the 

 normal state of things with the more northern Palsearctic birds. The 

 range of the Kestrel scarcely reaches a latitude high enough for an ex- 

 treme arctic form to be produced ; but its range in both the east and west 

 is sufficiently south for a tropical form to be developed. 



In newly moulted birds the differences of colour of these local races are 

 clearly perceptible in both sexes ; but in abraded plumage they are not 

 always easy to determine. Ornithologists are not agreed on the best way 

 of cataloguing these climatic races; but no true naturalist can ignore 

 them. To give them each a separate binomial name is liable to lead to an 

 exaggerated idea of their specific value ; and the American ornithologists 

 appear to have acted wisely in following the plan adopted by Linnaeus, of 

 calling the local races varieties. The result, if it be scientifically accurate, 

 is at the same time somewhat complicated. The British Kestrel being an 



