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road near Valsain, when my attention was attracted by our cliico (who was on the box) exclaim- 

 ing, 'Que pajaro es aquelT and on looking up I saw a beautiful specimen of La Marmora's 

 Falcon (Hypotriorchis eleonoroe) passing us slowly at not more than ten yards' distance. This 

 individual was in the plumage which so nearly resembles that of the Hobby, and is, I believe, 

 that of the second year. We halted, and I had the pleasure, not unmixed with vexation, of 

 observing for several minutes the evolutions of three of this rare species without being able to 

 secure a specimen. All three were busily engaged in catching insects, over a marshy open spot 

 close to the road, seizing them in their talons, and shifting them into their mouths with great 

 ease and rapidity; they appeared totally regardless of our presence, and all repeatedly passed 

 within a few yards of our carriage. One of these Falcons was of a uniform sooty brown ; the 

 third was apparently in the same state of plumage as the first we noticed, but not nearly so 

 bright or distinctly marked. The extreme length of the wing of this Falcon immediately arrests 

 the attention of any one accustomed to Hawks. This peculiarity is even more striking in La 

 Marmora's Falcon than in the Common Hobby ; and the difference in size between the two 

 species is much more remarkable on the wing than I should have imagined. On informing 

 Manuel of what we had seen, he told me he had often observed small Hawks near the Escorial 

 engaged in catching insects, but never any of the H. eleonoroe. We revisited the spot, where we 

 sought these Falcons several evenings in vain; we never saw them again." Major Irby informs 

 us that he is only able to give us " the negative evidence of not having met with it anywhere, 

 either in Andalucia or on the Moorish side of the Straits. Nor does it appear to have been 

 noticed by Favier. The only reason I have for thinking it may sometimes occur at Gibraltar is 

 that Latham, quoting a letter of the Rev. John White, brother of Gilbert White, who was at 

 Gibraltar just a hundred years ago, says ' the Hobby nests on the rocks here ;' what could this be 

 but F. eleonoroe 1" And Mr. Howard Saunders states that, "although I felt certain that I had 

 seen a pair of this species near Seville in April 1869, I was not enabled to identify it positively 

 until this year (1870), when on the 19th and 20th of May I found it in great abundance at the 

 Island of Dragonera, off the west of Mallorca. This rock, for it is little more, is in appearance 

 similar to Gibraltar, though of somewhat less elevation, being only 1180 feet from the level of 

 the sea to the base of the lighthouse, which is perched on the summit. As the Falcons fly very 

 high, it is not easy to obtain specimens ; for, though they hawk for food over the sloping side 

 of the rock, it would require a prolonged stay to get a shot with a chance of the bird falling on 

 land. When sitting with my legs dangling over the precipice, a little below the highest peak, 

 these birds passed backwards and forwards, within a few yards, as thick as Swallows on a 

 summer's evening. They were in both the uniform sooty and also the Hobby-like plumage in 

 about equal numbers ; many of the latter, from their size, I judged to be females. One of the 

 fishermen informed me that he had once found a clutch of three eggs, which he described 

 correctly, and which of course he had eaten ; but the majority of the nests, placed in the holes 

 of the sheer precipice, are perfectly inaccessible, so much does the upper part overhang. The 

 Rock-Pigeons (C'olumba livia), of which there were great numbers, did not show the slightest 

 fear of the Falcons. The fishermen call them ' Esparver.'" 



The present species has been recorded by Jaubert and Barthelemy-Lapommeraye from the 

 South of France, but is only a rare straggler to that country, as also to the mainland of Italy. 



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