LESSER KESTREL. 



FALCO CENCHRIS, Naum. 



Falco cenchris, Naum. Vog. Deutscli. i. p. 318 (1822) ; 

 Yarr. ed. 4, i. p. 82 ; Dresser, vi. p. 125. 



Crecerelle crecerellette, French: Rothel-Falke, German; 

 Primilla, Primita, wrongly Cernicalo, Spanish. 



This beautiful little falcon is a " Southerner," and its 

 visits to the British Islands, and, indeed, to any part of 

 Northern Europe, are exceptional and irregular. Mr. 

 Howard Saunders, in his ' Manual,' records two occur- 

 rences of the Lesser Kestrel in England, one in Yorkshire 

 in November 1867, and another near Dover in 1877 ; to 

 these may be added that of an adult male killed near 

 Shankill, Co. Dublin, on February 17, 1891, and another, 

 of the same sex, shot during the first week of March 

 1891, in Tresco, Scilly ; these two latter occurrences 

 are recorded in the ' Zoologist ' for 1891, pp. 152, 

 153, by Mr. A. G. More and Mr. J. H. Jenkinson 

 respectively. The Tresco specimen was most obligingly 

 lent for the purposes of the present work by Mr. Dorrien 

 Smith (to whom I am indebted for many valuable loans), 

 and is the bird represented in the accompanying Plate. 



