FALCONIDS. 15 
objection, as it would readily take a Wood Pigeon, 
eat as much as it could, and try to hide the rest. 
Starlings were the only birds I knew it refuse; it 
would, however, eat a Starling rather than starve. 
If more food was given than it could eat at one time, 
it would hide what it did not want in a corner of the 
cage, and try to bury it by rubbing the sand in a 
heap on it with its bill, much as a dog will do with 
a bone under similar circumstances. It generally 
plucked its birds tolerably clean before it ate them, 
but not so clean as to prevent it swallowing a great 
many feathers: these, as well as the bones and the 
hair or fur of animals, like all hawks, it brings up in 
small oblong pellets. The casting of these pellets 
was, I think, necessary to the health of the bird; for 
when it had been fed on raw meat for some time it 
ceased to bring up the pellets, and at such times 
always seemed to mope and to be generally out of 
condition. In giving this hawk a bird or mouse, 
I observed that it always took it in its foot and im- 
mediately gave it a sharp gripe with its beak across 
the back of the neck or the head, which must prove 
instantly fatal. 
Rats also seem to form part of the food of the 
Kestrel; for on one occasion I disturbed one when 
busily engaged at his dinner behind some ricks. 
Seeing him fly off with something in his feet, I fol- 
lowed him up and got nearly within shot of him, 
when he rose again with the same thing in his feet. 
C2 
