LORD LILFORD ON BIRDS IN THE LILFORD AVIARIES. 137 
number of Ilawks — Peregrines and Shaliins — employed in making 
up tli is aggregate, but I am pretty certain that it did not exceed 
four or five, and I believe that the record is unique. 
The Lanner, Falco feltlegii, 1 have met with occasionally in 
Andalucia, and, as I now believe, in European Turkey, and we 
found a pair of these birds nesting on the little island of Standia 
off the north coast of Crete. In the wild forest country on the 
proper right of the Guadalquivir, below Seville, a few pairs of this 
species used to breed annually, and I have received skins, eggs, 
and young birds from that district ; tho eggs, generally three in 
number, are laid in abandoned nests of Kites, ltavens, and other 
raptorial birds, in pine-trees towards tho end of April. I have 
reason to believe that this species feeds principally upon aquatic 
birds ; but in Spain I never noticed a Lanner in pursuit of quarry. 
In Tunis, however, a beautiful grey adult with very brilliant rufous 
crown crossod the horse-track upon which I was travelling within 
a very few yards of mo, in hot pursuit of a Kestrel. I have 
purchased many of this species sent to the London market from 
tho ports of Morocco, in which country tho bird is apparently 
abundant. The young Lanners thus obtained present two very 
distinct types of plumage, the majority more or less resembling on 
the upper parts young Peregrines, but with light-coloured heads 
and greenish-grey feet. All the young birds that I have received 
from Andalucia belong to this type, but amongst those from 
Morocco I have several times received Lanners of the year whose 
crowns were as brightly rufous as those of the adult, and their 
backs and breast-stripes were very much darker than those of the 
majority : however these dark-coloured birds on moulting assumed 
what we may call the normal plumage of their age. In the second 
or third year the feet of the Lanner become yellow, and in really 
adult healthy birds are brighter than those of the Peregrine. 
Many of the ancient authors on falconry write in high praise of 
the Lanner, but I cannot discover that any of our modern falconers 
hold it in much estimation, and I am inclined to think that as the 
ancients speak of it as especially good “for the river,” and as 
I know that this Hawk is a high flyer, in all probability the 
Lanners used in England were trained to wait on over the 
marshes and streams in August and September, and the terrified 
young water-fowl were taken by spaniels and pole-bearers under 
