LESSEE KESTKEL
FALCO CEN CHRIS, Naum.
Falco cenchris, Naum. Yog. Deutsch. 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 occurrences
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, Stilly; these two latter occurrences
are recorded in the ‘ Zoologist ’ for 1891, pp. 152,
158, 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,