Massachusetts Audubon Society 11 



BIRDS AND INSECTS LONG AGO 



In "The Seasons," by J. Thomson, under "Spring," edition of lo05, 

 page 7, I find the following: 



"To check this plague, the skillful farmer chaff, 

 And blazing straw, before his orchard burns, 

 Till, all involved — smoke, the latent foe 

 From every cranny suffocated falls: 

 Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust 

 Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe: 

 Or, when the envenomed leaf begins to curl, 

 With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest; 

 Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill. 

 The little trooping birds unwisely scaresT 

 This poem was written about 1728. and reference is made to the farmer's 

 recognition of the value of birds as insect destroyers. Have you any earlier 

 reference of this sort? 



J. C. Phillips. 



THE KEEPER AND THE KESTRELS 



Under the heading of "The Unsentimental Keeper" the following 

 account of Kestrels acting the part of foster-parents is contributed to the 

 London Morning Post (March 18th, 1922). 



The Kestrel is the English equivalent of our sparrow hawk. The bird 

 feeds largely on field mice and similar small vermin, though it very likely 

 destroys young pheasants. The story would seem to prove that the Kestrels 

 are rather better examples of nobility and kindness than the game keeper. 



"A keeper has- been telling me this strange story of a hawk adventure 

 last June: — 



"In a squirrel's old 'drey,' five or six years old, he discovered four 

 very young kestrels. He went into ambush and shot the female parent, 

 and the following night shot the male. To determine whether the young 

 would be fed by other adults which he might also destroy, he left them 

 to their fate. On the third night, when again lying in wait, sure enough 

 a male kestrel flashed into the nest with food for the orphans, and in turn 

 fell to this keeper's merciless gun. And then he saw, to his amazement, 

 what he describes as 'a reg'lar shoal of hawks;' that is to say, four or 

 five were in the air above the nest-tree, but out of range. One or more 

 of this 'shoal' must have taken compassion on the orphans. A week later 

 the young were still flourishing. He found them perched on a branch 

 running from the nest. As he watched yet another male kestrel came 

 in with food. The young were eagerly fluttering on the branch, squealing 

 a greeting, like puppies, or small pigs, when he shot their latest foster- 

 parent. That night the young kestrels shifted their quarters, and were not 

 seen again for a fortnight, when they were discovered in a sparrow-hawk's 

 ruined nest. For the fourth time the keeper shot a full-grown male kestrel as 

 he came in to succour the orphans. He believes that at least one of the 

 four voung ones survived all jierils of infancy. His explanation of the 

 mysterious affair is that the male birds who attended these much-bereaved 

 youngsters had themselves been deprived of their mates by other keepers 

 in other distant preserves, and were roaming the countryside to seek new 

 brides. Finding the orphans, family instinct prompted them to take charge, 

 an act of natural love requited by the keeper's gun." 



