Aug. 1, 1869.] 



HAEDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



179 



THE KESTREL 



{Falco tinnunculus) . 



WHEN falconry was^at its zenith in England a 

 and men of every rank, from king to peasant, 

 bad each a particular species of hawk according to 

 his rank, the commonest of all was assigned to the 

 peasant or serving man— coistrel— as he was called, 

 perhaps from the Latin coterellus. Erom this cir- 

 cumstance it is probable that our modern Kestrel 

 derived his name. We find the word variously 

 spelled by different authors. Shakespeare has 

 coystril ("Twelfth Night," act I., sc. 3), and 

 coistrel ("Pericles," act IV., sc. 6). Blome in his 

 "Gentleman's Recreation," 1686, writes it castrell ; 

 while as early as 1611 we find it as Jcesterel. * 



What a change has taken place since the last- 

 mentioned date with regard to hawks in England ! 

 Formerly the Kestrel was as much protected by law 

 as the Pheasant is nowadays. In Domesday Book 

 a hawk's " eyrie," or nest (aira accipitris), is re- 

 turned amongst the most valuable articles of pro- 

 perty. In the "Carta de Eorresta," which King 

 John was compelled to sign, privilege was given to 

 every free man to keep eyries of hawks, falcons, and 

 herons, in his woods. Edward III., who was 

 wonderfully fond of hawking, passed some very 

 stringent laws for the preservation of hawks. One 

 of these statutes, passed in the thirty-seventh year 

 of his reign, made it a felony to steal a hawk, and 

 not only had the offender to pay the value of the 

 bird by way of fine, but he suffered imprisonment 

 for a term, according to the circumstances of the case. 

 Later on it was considered so important to pre- 

 serve these birds in England and give them every 

 facility for rearing their young, that Henry VII. 

 decreed that any person convicted of taking 

 the nest or eggs of a falcon, goshawk, lanner, or 

 swan, should be imprisoned for a year and a day, 

 and fined at the king's pleasure ; half the fine to go 

 to the crown, and the other half to the owner of the 

 ground on which the nest was taken. Even on his 

 own land a man was not permitted to infringe this 

 law, but was compelled to import from abroad what 

 hawks he required for sport. When, however, 

 the musket was introduced into England, and people 

 learnt the art of shooting birds on the wing, the 

 practice of hawking declined, and with it the neces- 

 sity for the stringent laws just mentioned. Accord- 

 ingly Elizabeth modified, and in a great measure 

 repealed these statutes, which more recent legisla- 

 tion has entirely swept away. When we compare 

 the Kestrel of old, strictly preserved, reared, petted, 

 and tamed to take larks and blackbirds, with the 

 bird of the present day, which is persecuted on all 

 sides, shot and trapped as "vermin," and either 



* " A Jewel for Centric." London, 1614. 



nailed against a barn or miserably stuffed by a 

 village barber, we cannot but regret the change 

 which has taken place and the want of wisdom 

 which has caused it. 



There are few prettier sights in nature than the 

 manoeuvres of a kestrel on the wing. We never see 

 its wonderful, almost motionless hovering, without 

 thinking of the Ettrick shepherd, who sang of the 

 Merlin : 



"And the Merlin hung in the middle air, 

 With its little wings outspread, 

 As if let down from the heavens there 

 By a viewless silken thread." 



Erom this peculiarity hi its flight, as well as from 

 its brown colour and more pointed wings, the 

 Kestrel may be distinguished on the wing from the 

 rounder-winged and grey Sparrow-hawk. We have 

 often been surprised at the ignorance displayed by 

 keepers on the subject of hawks. Many of them 

 not only do not know a kestrel from a sparrow- 

 hawk, but they actually admit that, although they 

 have shot hundreds, they have never proved by dis- 

 section that their surmises with regard to its food 

 were well founded. 



Venturing to remonstrate once with a keeper who 

 had just shot a kestrel, and would persist in calling 

 it a " Sparrer-'awk," he said, " Lor' bless you, sir, 

 I've shot scores on 'em. I know he [pointing to 

 the bird] as well as I know this here dawg, and 

 there ain't a greater varmint out. I'll be bound 

 he's had some o' my young birds." We held a 

 post-mortem, and instead of a young pheasant, 

 we found he had been dining off a short-tailed field- 

 mouse, with grasshoppers for second course, and 

 the keeper was obliged to admit that he could not 

 grudge him that fare. We begged hard for the 

 poor Kestrel, but it is difficult to overcome a pre- 

 judice, and keepers have always a ready excuse, 

 though oftentimes a poor one, for what they do. 



A gentleman in Sussex once found a nightjar 

 strung up with a lot of stoats and jays in his keeper's 

 " museum." He immediately reproved the man 

 for killing it. The keeper declared it was " a specie 

 of 'awk ;" but his master pointing to the bill and 

 feet, clearly showed him that it was no such thing, 

 and concluded by saying that for the future he 

 wished such birds preserved. One would have 

 thought that this would have silenced the man. 

 Determined, however, to find an excuse, he said, 

 scratching his head, "Well, sir, it's a narsty 

 floppin' thing ! " 



But to return to the Kestrel. We have often 

 been asked how it is that Kestrels appear to be so 

 much more numerous in autumn than at any other 

 time of year. There are many ways of account- 

 ing for this. Generally speaking, the observers are 

 sportsmen, who cross the country more frequently 

 in the fall of the year, and therefore notice the birds 

 oftener. Then, again, by the time that young par- 



