Recent Ornithological Publications. 341 



gical Garden at Dresden about a month previously. More 

 interesting, perhaps, than any of these papers are two relating 

 to scarce European Accipitres. The well-known Dr. Kriiper 

 has at last given us a detailed account of his discovery respecting 

 the breeding of Falco eleonora in the Cyclades, which will well 

 repay attentive perusal. One most curious part in the economy 

 of this species seems to have been quite unsuspected before, since 

 no allusion is made to the circumstance by Professor Gene, who, 

 however, describes and figures its egg (Mem. Acad. Torino, 1840, 

 p. 44, tab. i, fig. 2). This is the very late period of the year at 

 which it breeds. Dr. Kriiper found it, on the islands of Paros, 

 Naxia, and Mykoni, laying its eggs in the month of August. 

 Several of the specimens collected by him are now in our pos- 

 session, and much resemble, as might be expected, those of the 

 common Hobby in colour, but are considerably larger. There 

 appear to be four distinct styles of coloration in the underside 

 of the adult female of this bird: (1) Ferruginous with black 

 spots, the chin and cheeks yellowish, without black shaft-streaks, 

 the moustache very plain and nearly black, flanks bright fer- 

 ruginous ; (2) Ferruginous with blackish-brown spots, the chin 

 and cheeks of the same colour, but brighter in hue, the mous- 

 tache blackish-brown ; (3) Dark brown with blackish-brown 

 spots, even to the chin ; (4) Almost entirely black, with the ex- 

 ception of the abdomen, where the dark brown shows itself. In 

 the two last plumages the moustache is indistinct. Falco eleonorcs, 

 as Dr. Kriiper justly remarks, is doubtless identical with F. ar- 

 cadicus and F. concolor of Lindermayer (not of Temminck) and 

 with F. dichrous of Erhard. It appears to prey chiefly on birds, 

 among them on the Woodchat- Shrike, and, as Dr. Kriiper was 

 told, on the Common Snipe. This indefatigable ornithologist has 

 made another valuable discovery also relating to a rare and hitherto 

 somewhat obscure European bird of prey. In the * Bulletin' 

 of the Moscow Society of Naturalists for 1850 (ii. pp. 234-239) 

 M. N. Severzow described, under the name of Astur hrevipes, a 

 a new species of Sparrow-Hawk, of which he had obtained three 

 examples from the Government of Voronej, in Southern Russia ; 

 and Herr Seidensacher has communicated to the Vienna Trans- 

 actions (the paper being reprinted in the 'Journal fiir Orni- 



