LESSEE KESTREL, 49 
not uncommon in Turkey, very abundant in Asia Minor and in Egypt, 
and it also occurs in South Africa during the rainy season. 
The Lesser Kestrel nests among old ruins, or in the crevices of 
mountain rocks, particularly, according to Temminck, in Sicily, and in 
the neighbourhood of Gibraltar. Mr. Stafford Allen says that it breeds 
in Egypt in palm trees, sycamores, and old ruins. 
Its eggs, according to Kriiper, are four or five in number; very 
short, smaller than those of the Kestrel; of a reddish white, with a 
great number of little points and "fly spots" of a brick red, mingled 
together and mixed with small brown spots. It makes no nest when 
it builds in ruins. 
It has the same habits as the Kestrel; lives upon coleoptera, 
grasshoppers, and small reptiles, rarely upon small birds. 
The following is from Von Heuglin's " Ornithologie Nord Ost 
Afrika's:" — "The Lesser Kestrel occurs in Egypt, Arabia, Nubia, 
Kordofan, Abyssinia, as a bird of passage in the autumn and spring. 
Often large flocks congregate in acacia and date forests, and on the 
steppes. It remains in Egypt from the middle of March to the 
beginning of May, and appears on the opposite tract of "country in 
September and October. Solitary pairs are said to breed in the walls 
of the fortifications of Alexandria. On the 18th. of February, says 
Vierthaler, a whole host of these Falcons flew over a low wood on 
the Blue Nile, which was full of grasshoppers." Heuglin notices a 
similar flight at Memphis in April, and in October at Kerew, in 
Bogos Land. It moults in November and December. It occurs in 
Algeria, South Africa, Syria and Asia Minor, south of Europe as far 
north as Germany, and Western Siberia. It also occurs in India, 
and breeds in the Neilgherries in May and June. Mr. Hume, without 
knowing anything about the egg itself, finds fault with my drawing 
in " The Birds of Europe," simply because the egg came from Moquin- 
Tandon. I have now a series of ten in my collection, and I can 
bear testimony to the truthfulness of my plate, and any practical orni- 
thologist will bear me out in this statement. 
I take Judge Hume's remarks in perfect good humour, as he is an 
enthusiastic and able ornithologist, and I like the manly, frank tone 
in which he writes. He must, however, bear in mind that in a work 
like my "Birds of Europe" I was obliged frequently to rely on the 
good faith of others, and this seldom failed me. In criticism he must 
therefore do the same kind of justice which he exercises in his own 
court, and be guided in his judgment solely by the evidence before him. 
Male with head and nape, upper tail coverts, and all but the 
distal end of the tail blue grey; back, scapulars, and a greater part 
VOL. i. h 
