HOBBY. Q7 
much speckled all over with reddish or yellowish 
brown. Some are thus mottled with olive green. 
One variety is of a dull brown, with a very slight 
tinge of dull orange, mottled all over with smail specks 
and marks of different darker shades, a few of them 
much deeper than the rest. 
A second, a very elegant egg, is the faintest orange 
yellowish brown on a white ground, minutely dotted 
and speckled all over with darker markings of the same, 
a few of them much darker than the rest. 
A third is light yellowish brown, but darker than 
the last mentioned, marked in the same way, but more 
suffused. 
A fourth is of a decided reddish cast, but light and 
clear in colour, and elegantly marked all over with 
small darker streaked spots of reddish brown. 
Mr. Hewitson describes the eggs generally as being 
very much like some of those of the Kestrel, as well 
as those of the Merlin; but says that they are larger 
than either; of a pinker hue, less suffused with colour, 
and marked with fewer of the small black dots which 
are scattered over the surface of the others. 
The young remain for some time in the neighbour- 
hood of the nest, until they have gradually learned to 
cater for themselves. 
