202 FALCO TINNUNCULUS. 



to the inaccessible parts of rocks, or to old buildings, 

 to roost. I bav^e seen it in almost every part of Scot- 

 land and England that I have visited ; but it is of more 

 frequent occurrence in wooded or cultivated districts 

 than in wild barren regions, which, on the other hand, 

 are preferred by the larger hawks and eagles. 



Buffon's account of the habits of the Kestrel is some- 

 what different, but as he seems to speak from observa- 

 tion, and as his description is lively, I have pleasure in 

 translating it. " The Cresserelle," says he, " is the 

 most common rapacious bird in most of our French 

 provinces, and especially in Burgundy. There is not 

 an old castle or a deserted tower which it does not fre- 

 quent and inhabit. It is particularly in the morning 

 and evening that it is seen flying about these old build- 

 ings, and that it is heard more frequently than seen. It 

 has a hurried cry of pli, pli, pit, or pri, pri, pri, which 

 it incessantly repeats as it flies, and which frightens all 

 the little birds on which it darts like an arrow, and 

 which it seizes with its talons. If it should happen to 

 miss them at the first plunge, it pursues them into the 

 houses fearless of danger, I have more than once seen 

 my people take a Cresserelle and the little bird which 

 it was pursuing, by closing the window of a room, or 

 the door of a gallery, which were more than two hun- 

 dred yards distant from the old towers from which it 

 had issued. When it has seized and carried off the 

 bird, it kills it and plucks it very neatly before eating 

 it. It does not take so much trouble with mice, for 

 it swallows the smaller whole and tears the others 

 to pieces. All the soft parts of the body of the mouse 

 are digested in the stomach of this bird ; but the skin 



