Miscellaneous. 7 



K 



However, as many completely differentiated birds in aU probabi- 

 lity existed even in the Triassic epoch, and as we possess hardly any 

 knowledge of the terrestrial reptiles of that period, it may be re- 

 garded as certain that we have no knowledge of the animals which 

 linked reptiles and birds together historically and genetically, and 

 that the Dinosauria, with Conipsog^iathus, Arcliceopteryx, and the 

 struthioiis birds, only help us to form a reasonable conception of 

 what these intermediate forms may have been. 



In conclusion, I think I have shown cause for the assertion that 

 the facts of palaeontology, so far as birds and reptiles are concerned, 

 are not opposed to the doctrine of evolution, but, on the contrary, are 

 quite such as that doctrine would lead us to expect ; for they enable 

 us to form a conception of the manner in which birds may have 

 been evolved from reptiles, and thereby justify us in maintain- 

 ing the superiority of the hypothesis that birds have been so ori- 

 ginated to all hypotheses which are devoid of an equivalent basis 

 of fact. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Occurrence of Tinnunculus cenchris in Britain. 

 By W. S. Dallas, F.L.S. 



This Museum has just been fortunate enough to obtain a fine 

 specimen, killed within a few miles of York, of a species of Ealcon, 

 the occurrence of which in this country has, I believe, never before 

 been authentically recorded, — namely, the little Kestrel of South- 

 eastern Europe, Tinnunculus cencJiris (Naum.). The specimen, which 

 is a mature but apparently not an old male, was presented to the 

 Museum by Mr. John Harrison, of Wilstrop Hall, near Green Ham- 

 merton, who shot it upon his farm at that place, after having ob- 

 served it for some little time flying about. The date, he thinks, was 

 about the middle of last November ; but of this he took no note, as 

 he at first thought that the bird was merely a small and curious 

 variety of the common Kestrel. It, however, presents all the dis- 

 tinctive characters of Tinnunculus cenchris^ among which the yel- 

 lowish-white claws may be mentioned as affording an easy means of 

 identifying the bird. 



Mr. Graham, of York, to whose intervention the Museum is in- 

 debted for the acquisition of this interesting specimen, has informed 

 me that, on a recent excursion of his, he saw another example of 

 this species, in the possession of the Eev. Charles Hudson, of Trowell, 

 near Nottingham. On my writing to that gentleman, he kindly 

 informed me that the specimen of the " small Kestrel " had been in 

 his possession for about eight years, and that he purchased it from 

 a joiner named Brown, formerly living at Thorpe Hall, near Brid- 

 lington, who was an enthusiastic collector of birds, and in the habit 

 of preparing them for people in that neighbourhood. Brown's ac- 

 count of the bird, which he denominated the '^ American Falcon," 



