THE LESSER KESTREL. 155 
thighs and under tail-coverts rufous fawn colour, unspotted; under surface of tail 
greyish-white; beak blue; cere and orbital space yellow; irides dark brown; legs 
yellow; claws black. There is a light buff space below the eye, and the black 
moustache is not so distinctly marked as in the other Falcons: length 13 
inches. 
The female is reddish-brown above, barred transversely with bluish-black ; 
wings darker than those of male; the whole of the under parts paler; length 
15 inches. 
Young birds resemble the female, but are a little paler; the blue head is the 
last to be assumed as they reach the adult plumage. 
Family—FALCONIDAE. 
LESSER KESTREL. 
Falco cenchris, NAUMANN. 
HIS is a smaller species than the Common Kestrel, and is an abundant 
summer visitor to the southern countries of Europe. Besides the two 
occurrences mentioned by Saunders, one in Yorkshire, the other, an adult male, 
captured alive near Dover, two others have been obtained in Ireland, another in 
the Scilly Isles, and a very small female Kestrel, examined by Mr. E. H. Rodd, 
in Cornwall, may have been another, while in the autumn of 1895 the writer was 
informed of one that had been picked up dead near Newport, in Monmouthshire. 
It is very probable that other examples have been procured in this country, and 
have not been recognised. The whcte claws of the Lesser Kestrel are its best 
distinguishing marks; the adult male also differs from the adult male Common 
Kestrel in having no black spots upon its red back. 
