180 FALCO AUDUBONI. 
chester, contains the small Falcon described above, 
which is probably a male. It was sent to this 
country from Philadelphia, in a collection of the 
skins of birds of the United States of North 
America. It has the closest affinity with the Merlin, 
but may readily be distinguished from that bird by 
its smaller size, by the tips of the folded wings ap- 
proaching nearer to the end of the tail, by the plumage 
of the upper parts, which is much darker-coloured, 
resembling that of the Hobby, and also by the plumage 
of the inferior parts, which has less of the ferrugimous 
tint. 
A skin which I obtained from the same collec- 
tion appears to have belonged to an immature male 
of this Falcon. It differs from that of the adult 
male principally in having the plumage of the upper 
parts of a deep brown colour (with the exception of 
a few feathers which have assumed the dark bluish 
tint), and in the oval spots on the inner webs of the 
quill-feathers of the wings having a pale red-brown 
hue. 
I have dedicated this species to the late J. J. Audu- 
bon, Esq., the celebrated author of the ‘ Ornithological 
Biography,’ whose splendid illustrations of the 
‘Birds of America,’ to use the words of the illus- 
trious Cuvier, constitute the most magnificent monu- 
ment which has hitherto been raised to ornithology. 
