THE HAWKS 189 



The Kestrel, 



The kestrel is the watchman of the marshland. At all 

 seasons of the year you may see him hovering over his 

 prey — either when the broads are white levels, or when 

 the marshes are gay with many-coloured flowers, or sere 

 with dying grasses, or fresh with new spring grass. He 

 is the true mouse - hunter, and the long -tailed marsh 

 mouse is his ever-ready prey ; indeed, every marsh-wall is 

 strewn with their soft mouse-coloured down edged with 

 brown, for he, like all the hawk tribe, loves to eat his 

 food securely on an eminence, whence he can cast his 

 keen regards over the flat-land, and detect any coming 

 danger. Freshly picked mouse-fur and casts, these are 

 unfailing signs of his dining-places, where he spews after 

 he has pulled the fur from his little bead-eyed victim, and 

 rent him with his bill, and eaten him from the head 

 downwards. But if the weather be hard, he falls upon 

 larks, sparrows, water-voles, young rats, and, in the breed- 

 ing season, frogs and young birds, even young partridges. 

 But he takes few of these — very few ; and, everything con- 

 sidered, his name should be erased from any list of outlaws, 

 for he is one of the most useful birds we have — a real 

 farmer's friend, suppressing the plague of field-mice with a 

 firm and deadly claw. 



But let us watch him just before closing-in time on a calm 

 evening, when the marshland wears a bland aspect, and the 

 light is subdued and diffused over reed-bed and gladen 

 morass — for he prefers the evening and morning to eat in, 

 though he may be seen hunting at every hour of the day. 

 Then he comes flying lightly down his regular beat by the 

 marsh -wall leading from the mill to the river, and he 

 suddenly stops, his body well held up in the air, but his 

 head kept down, his tail spread fanwise and bent down, 

 and his wings flapping quickly. He is perfectly balanced 



