Hawk,” F. sparverius, rivals F. tinnunculus in its range,
extending over nearly the whole of the New W orld; and,
though examples vary exceedingly in colour, it has hitherto
defied the power of ornithologists satisfactorily to divide it
even into local races. One species, the Lesser Kestrel and
Falco cencliris of authors—a common bird in Southern
Europe—is said to have been killed in England, and has been
admitted by the Rev. Francis Orpen Morris to a place in the
last edition of his ‘ British Birds,’ but on what appears to
have been incomplete evidence.
The whole length of the Kestrel is from thirteen to fifteen
inches, depending on the sex. The male, the upper figure
in the illustration, has the beak blue, pale towards the base;
the cere and orbits yellow, the irides dark brown ; the top of
the head, cheeks, and nape of the neck, ash-grey, with
dusky longitudinal streaks; the back, tertials, and wing-
covert s, reddish fawn-colour, with small black triangular
spots dispersed over them, one occupying the point of each
feather; the primaries and secondaries blackish-grey, with
lighter-coloured edges ; the tail-feathers ash-grey, with a
broad black band near the end, and a white tip ; the breast
and belly pale rufous fawn-colour, with dark longitudinal
streaks on the former, and dark spots 011 the latter ; the thighs
and under tail-coverts rufous fawn-colour, without spots;
the tail beneath greyish-white, with imperfect dark transverse
bars ; the legs and toes yellow ; the claws black.
In the female, the top of the head is reddish fawn-colour,
striped darker longitudinally; the whole of the upper surface
reddish-brown, barred transversely with bluish-black; primaries
darker than in the male : the whole under surface of
the body of a paler ferruginous colour, but streaked on the
breast and spotted low7er down, as in the male ; under surface
of the tail more uniform in colour and less distinctly barred
than in the male.
Young males are like the female till after their first winter,
but then begin to exhibit the adult plumage, the head being
the last part to change.
A CCIPI TRES. FA LCONIDÆ.
A s t u b p a lum b a b iu s (Linnæus*).
T H E G O S -H AW K .
Astur palumbarius.
A stur, Lacêpèdef.—Bill short, bending from the base ; cutting edge of the
upper mandible produced, forming a festoon. Nostrils oval. Wings short,
reaching only to the middle of the tail-feathers, the fourth quill-featlier the
longest. Legs stout, the tarsi covered in front with broad scales. Toes of
moderate length, the middle toe somewhat the longest, the lateral toes nearly
equal, but the inner claws considerably larger than the outer.
I n f e b io k in powers to the Falcons, t h o u g h equal in size to
the largest of them, the Gos-Hawk or Goose-Hawk is yet the
* Falco ■palumbarius, Linnæus, Syst. Nat. Ed. 12, i. p. 130 (1766).
t Mémoires de l’Institut, iii. p. 506 (1800-1801).