THE KESTRELS. 
207 
and grasshoppers. He says that the stairs and other approaches 
to the towers frequented by this and the larger Kestrel are 
often “ covered with an accumulation of wing-cases and ejected 
pellets of indigestible matter.” In general habits, flight, and 
cry the present species is said by Lord Lilford to resemble the 
Common Kestrel, but in his opinion it is a more entirely in- 
sectivorous bird, and takes its prey on the ground. He writes : 
“ The two species of Kestrel are, I think, in April and May, 
the commonest birds in Andalucia, with perhaps the exception 
of the Lee-Eater. Every church-steeple, belfry, and tower, 
every town and village, every ruin, swarms with them. I 
believe I am not at all beyond the mark in saying that I have 
seen three or four hundred on the wing at the same moment 
on more than one occasi n, notably at Castro del Kio in April, 
1864. Both species of Kestrel continue on the wing long 
after sunset.” 
Nest. — No nest is made by this little Kestrel, and the eggs 
are generally laid in a hole of a building, sometimes within 
reach of the ground. In the Crimea, Colonel Irby found 
them nesting in holes in banks. 
Eggs. — Four or five in number, though occasionally as many 
as seven are found. Although some of them are marked like 
the Common Kestrel’s, and are only to be distinguished from 
the eggs of the latter by their smaller size, the series in the 
British Museum is undoubtedly paler and more cinnamon in 
tint than the eggs of C. tinminculus. The eggs are minutely 
spotted with rufous, and less boldly blotched than the eggs of 
the preceding species, and the markings always seem to me to 
be smaller in character. Axis, I’s-i'S inch; diarn., i •1-1-2. 
III. THE RED-FOOTED KESTREL. CERCHNEIS VESPERTINA. 
Falco vesperiinus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 129 (1766); Macg. 
Brit. B. in. p. 313 (1840); Newt. ed. Yarr. Brit. B. i. p. 
69 (1871) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. 93, pi. 382 (i87r); Seeb. 
Brit. B. i. p. 42 (1883) ; Saunders, Man. Brit. B. p. 230 
(1889). ^ 
Cerchneis vespertina, Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. i. p. 443 
(1874). 
Tinnttnculus vespertinus, B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 103 (1883). 
