387 
Lord Lilford on the Ornithology of Spain. 
darrama. “ Rabilargo ” also, the Spanish Magpie, was rather 
conspicuous by his scarcity ; and I discovered that all the eggs of 
this species brought to me by the lads came from an enclosed 
shrubbery of a few acres in extent, immediately adjoining the 
village. 
As I was still unable to walk, I could of course do but very 
little in the way of collecting, and was forced to confine myself 
to the use of my eyes instead of my breech-loader, thus missing 
on June 5th a chance of obtaining perhaps the rarest bird which 
I met with during this visit to Spain. We were returning 
from a drive in the pine-forest, from which we had just emerged 
on the road near Valsain, when my attention was attracted by 
our chico (who was on the box) exclaiming, “^Que pajaro es 
aquel?” and on looking up I saw a beautiful specimen of 
La Marmora’s Falcon ( Hypotriorchis eleonorce) passing us slowly 
at not more than ten yards’ distance. This individual was in 
the plumage which so nearly resembles that of the Hobby and 
is, I believe, that of the second year. We halted, and I had the 
pleasure, not unmixed with vexation, of observing for several 
minutes the evolutions of three of this rare species without 
being able to secure a specimen. All three were busily engaged 
in catching insects, over a marshy open spot close to the road, 
seizing them in their talons, and shifting them into their mouths 
with great ease and rapidity; they appeared totally regardless 
of our presence, and all repeatedly passed within a few yards of 
the carriage. One of these Falcons was of a uniform sooty- 
brown ; the third was apparently in the same stage of plumage 
as the first we noticed, but not nearly so brightly or distinctly 
marked. The extreme length of wing in this Falcon imme¬ 
diately arrests the attention of any one accustomed to Hawks. 
This peculiarity is even more striking in La Marmora’s Falcon 
than in the Common Hobby; and the difference in size between 
the two species is much more remarkable on the wing than I 
should have imagined. On informing Manuel of what we had 
seen, he told me that he had often observed small Hawks near 
the Escorial engaged in catching insects, but never any of the 
H. eleonorce. We revisited the spot where we saw these Falcons 
several evenings in vain ; we never saw them again. 
