THE RED-FOOTED KESTREL. 17 



Of the Red-footed Kestrels there are two, an 

 eastern and a western form ; and it is the latter 

 bird which has been depicted in our illustration. 

 It is a beautiful little bird, and has been captured 

 in the British Islands more than twenty times. 

 It is also of accidental occurrence in Western 

 Europe and Scandinavia, but from Hungary east- 

 wards, throughout Southern Russia, it breeds 

 plentifully, and extends to South-western Siberia, 

 as far as the district of Krasnoyarsk. In the 

 region of Lake Baikal, and eastwards to Mongolia 

 and Northern China, the place of our Red-footed 

 Kestrel is taken by an allied species, C. amurensis, 

 which has the under wing-coverts white, instead 

 of slaty-grey. The winter home of the Eastern 

 Red-footed Kestrel is also to be found in South 

 Africa, where the European bird also takes up its 

 winter abode, but even in their winter quarters, 

 the two species preserve, to a great extent, their 

 eastern and western distribution, as C. vespertina 

 is common in Damara Land and South-west 

 Africa, where C. amurensis is scarcely ever met 

 with, while" the latter bird occurs in numbers in 

 South-eastern Africa, where C. vespertina is not 

 seen, as far as we know. How do these birds 



