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For the following note we are indebted to the kindness of Major Irby, who has given us a 

 complete series of observations on the Birds of Andalucia : — 



" Extremely numerous, arriving in February and leaving in October. A few pair remain at 

 Gibraltar throughout the year. I have never seen this bird nesting in trees, but always in holes 

 of rocks and buildings, or, as in the Crimea, in river-banks. I have taken the nest in a hole in a 

 wall four feet from the ground. It is observed on the Rock of Gibraltar." 



The following interesting account of the species has been published by Lord Lilford in his 

 paper on the Ornithology of Spain : — 



" The two species of Kestrel, F. tinnunculus and F. tinnunculoides, are, I think, in April 

 and May, the commonest birds in Andalucia, with perhaps the exception of the Bee-eater (Merops 

 ajriaster). Every church-steeple, belfry, and tower, every town and village, every ruin swarms 

 with them ; I believe I am not at all beyond the mark in saying that I have seen three or four 

 hundred on wing at the same moment on more than one occasion, particularly at Castro del Bio 

 in April 1864. I think the Little Kestrel is somewhat the most abundant of the two species. 

 The cry of these pretty birds is as certain to strike the ear in the towns of Andalucia as the 

 twang of the guitar and click of the castanets. Both species of Kestrel continue on wing long 

 after dark. In the delicious summer nights of Southern Spain, when all the louder sounds of 

 human life are hushed, and nothing breaks the silence but the monotonous note of the little 

 Scops Owl, and the 'wet my lips' of innumerable Quails, I have occasionally been roused from a 

 reverie by the cry of the Kestrels over my head, seemingly passing and repassing, and carrying 

 on their usual evolutions in spite of the darkness. Whilst on this subject, may I ask if any of 

 my readers have ever remarked the extraordinary cries of birds during the night % It has hap- 

 pened to me on several occasions after dark, in different parts of Europe, to hear very large 

 flights of birds, with whose notes (in the majority of instances) I was totally unacquainted, pass 

 over at no great distance. Once, in one of the quadrangles of Christ-Church, Oxford, I listened 

 for at least ten minutes to the continuous cry of a flock of birds — which cry I can only liken, and 

 that very slightly, to the screech of the Night-Heron (Nycticorax griseus). Again, on the 

 Esplanade at Corfu, in the summer of 1858, my companion and I were suddenly startled from 

 the somewhat drowsy contemplation of our cigarettes by an uproar as if all the feathered 

 inhabitants of the great Acherusian marsh had met in conflict over our heads ; this took place in 

 July, about 1 a.m., when we were lengthening our days according to Tom Moore's well-known 

 precept. It would be quite impossible to convey any thing approaching to a just idea of the 

 Babel of sounds, many of which neither of us had ever before heard ; and I have no conception 

 what birds can have produced the greater part of them ; but I recognized the wail of the Curlew, 

 the cry of more than one species of Tern, and the laugh of some Larus. In Southern Spain the 

 Lesser Kestrel occasionally remains through the winter, but the greater number leave the country 

 about October and reappear in April. The Spaniards call the Common Kestrel Cernicalo, and 

 the Lesser Primilla or Buero : this latter name is sometimes applied to the Hobby also. The 

 Merlin (Falco cesalon), in Spanish Esmerejon, is common in winter, and well known throughout 

 Spain." 



In Sardinia the Lesser Kestrel is common, and breeds. Mr. C. A. Wright says that in Malta 

 the inhabitants call the adult male Spagnolott, and the female and young birds Seker. " It is," 



