KESTREL FALCON. 335 



the Sparrow Hawk, with which it ia in this neighbourhood al- 

 most always confounded. I have often spoken to game-keepers 

 in its behalf, but the mangled forms which I too often seo 

 nailed against the walls of the dog-kennel, shew that ray 

 friendly advice has been disregarded. With us its food con- 

 sists chiefly of mice, and when in search of prey it glides softly 

 through the air in large circular sweeps, at a moderate eleva- 

 tion, now poised on fluttering pinions, now resting in the air 

 without motion, and now descending on the unconscious quarry. 

 With all deference to the superior knowledge of that distin- 

 guished naturalist Mr Waterton, I shall humbly endeavour to 

 account for its migration. After the fields are cleared of the 

 grain, the Field-mouse begins to form a store, and nestling in 

 a warm bed of leaves of trees, bushes, and the cultivated grasses, 

 he probably feels little desire to bask in the sun, without a 

 blade of any thing to screen him from his numerous foes. The 

 ground, too, is very damp at this season, and, all things con- 

 sidered, it prefers moving during the darkness, so that the Barn 

 Owl does not starve. I have dug the burrows of the mice in 

 December, and have often found from a half to three quarters 

 of a pint of grain in them. Consider how very few beetles are 

 moving during this season, and it is not to be wondered at that 

 the Kestrel leaves us. Birds constitute no part of its food. If 

 you doubt this, go to the fields and observe for yourself The 

 Lark ceases not his song in its presence, and the Brown Lin- 

 net passes it unheeded, as with mellow note he bounds to his 

 nest in the golden-blossomed furze. When he comes to the 

 stack-yard, no anxious cluck is heard from the domestic hen to 

 her young, the Chafl^nch and Sparrow continue jncking up the 

 seeds at the barn door, and tlie Swallow, his rival in graceful 

 flight, sings his song from the top of the chimney of the steam- 

 engine. I however own that when a locality is much disturbed 

 by the Sparrow Hawk, the Kestrel is liable to be mobbed. 



" I have no means of ascertaining how many mice it requires 

 per diem. Allow 4, which is surely a moderate estimate, and 

 multiplying by 210, the number of days it remains with us, we 

 find the result to be 840 mice. Supposing the sexes to be in 

 equal proportion, there would be 420 pairs. Adult mice are 



