10 ENGLISH BIRD LIFE 



Kestrel," of no small value to the student of aerial 

 navigation. 



The Kestrel feeds largely upon voles and field- 

 mice, thereby rendering the farmer efficient aid, 

 for a plague of voles is by no means an unknown 

 evil. When hovering, its keen eye searches the 

 tangled herbage far beneath, and, when it sees the 

 tiny form moving below amidst the stems, it drops 

 suddenly upon it — a veritable bolt from the blue. 

 Sometimes it will descend upon what appears to 

 be a likely spot — or, more probably, where it has 

 seen the movement of a mouse — and watch like a 

 cat for the reappearance of its prey. 



The Merlin is distributed rather unequally 

 throughout England. At one time it was con- 

 sidered to be merely a winter visitant to the 

 southern districts, but it is now known to breed in 

 most English counties; whilst from Yorkshire 

 northwards to the Shetlands it is of fairly common 

 occurrence. The nest is placed upon the ground 

 amidst heather, or in rocks, and on rare occasions 

 in England, in a tree. The four to six eggs are 

 deeply mottled with dark red merging into purple. 

 The bird is found pretty generally throughout 

 the European continent, and it also visits parts 

 of India, and occasionallv China. Like the Kes- 

 trel, the ^Merlin varies its diet with courses of 

 moths, cockchafers and other insects, but small 

 birds probably form its staple food. These it hunts 

 down resolutely, pursuing them into the recesses of 

 trees and brushwood, where even the Peregrine 

 himself would forbear to follow. In the palmy days 



