50 FALCONDXffi. 



doubt on my mind of the hobby having occurred in this county. 

 On a late visit to my friend Mr. Eichard Parker, I saw, for the 

 first time, amongst his beautiful paintings, a hawk, winch I could 

 not for a moment hesitate in recognising as a hobby; the history 

 of it is tins : — A brother of his shot on the garden wall of Car- 

 rigrohan, the family mansion, in the summer of 1822 (?), a hawk 

 which presented so unusual an appearance, that he made a colour- 

 ed drawing of it. The size he describes as having been between 

 that of a merlin and a kestrel. The painting is an exact copy of 

 the coloured drawing in all respects but size, and it certainly 

 answers critically the description of the hobby. The dark spots 

 on the lower parts are longitudinally disposed. 



Carrigrohan is wooded and inland — three or four miles up the 

 river from Cork." 



The Hobby is called a rare summer visitant to England, but 

 very little information is given respecting it as such; it seems not 

 to have been met with in the north of that country, nor in 

 Scotland. 



THE BED-FOOTED EALCON. 



Orange-legged Hobby. 



Falco rufipes, Besecke. 

 vesjpertinus, Gmel. 



Is an extremely rare visitant. 



Its occurrence in Ireland was first noticed, in a communication 

 which I made to the Zoological Society of London (in June, 1835), 

 respecting an immature specimen obtained in the county of Wick- 

 low, in the summer of 1832. This bird was preserved for the 

 collection of T. W. Warren, Esq. of Dublin, by whose kindness 

 it was exhibited on that occasion. The specimen was given to 

 Mr. Warren by a gentleman who shot it in his yard, just as it 

 had pounced at a pigeon of at least its own size, which, with the 

 hawk, fell dead at the one discharge. In March, 1833, Mr. W. 

 S. Wall, bird preserver, mentioned to me, that he had iu October, 

 1830, received a hobby in a fresh state, from Bally veolan, 



