KESTREL. 49 
singing on all sides; the air, with the balmy freshness only known in the 
vernal season, is resonant with melody; but high up in the air above you 
the Kestrels are sailimg and chasing each other. Several are in the air 
together; and their flight is now graceful in the extreme—darting down- 
wards, soaring aloft, and making the woods and rocks resound with their 
peculiar notes. It is their love-season, too; and at this period the Kestrel 
is more noisy than at any other time of the year. Their chorus of cries, 
high up in the blue sky, rendered musical by the distance—keelie, keelie, 
kee-kee-kee—is varied by a harsh chattering cry. 
The Kestrel appears to delay its nesting-season until field-mice and insects 
are plentiful. The Kestrel generally breeds in the thickest woods, and rarely 
in nests built in isolated trees. It also rears its young on the cliffs by the 
sea-side ; and some of the best places to seek for its eggs are the rocks on 
the moors and the cliffs of limestone districts. The Kestrel will also not 
unfrequently lay her eggs in holes of buildings, notably amongst ivied ruins 
and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals, in company with Doves and Jack- 
daws. When the eggs are laid in the crevices of rocks, a little cavity is, 
if possible, scratched in the soft earth or vegetable refuse, or, failing 
this, some natural cavity in the rock itself is chosen in which to deposit 
the eggs. I once took five Kestrel’s eggs out of an old Raven’s nest in 
the cleft of a perpendicular cliff at Howden Chest, in the High Peak of 
Derbyshire. It was an elaborate and highly finished structure, doubtless 
composed of the materials brought by the Ravens twenty years before, but 
evidently rebuilt for the occasion. It was almost flat; the centre was 
about 7 inches across, a slight hollow in a bed of peat, lined with bits of 
heath. Around this centre was a broad ring, 7 inches wide, very regularly 
and evenly made of the thick charred stalks of ling which had escaped the 
fire when the heath was burnt, now bleached white with age. It is very 
probable that the Kestrel is a life-paired bird, like other members of its 
order ; and every season it will, if left unmolested, return to the same place 
to rear its young. Even if one of the birds be destroyed, the other will 
quickly find another mate, and return with unerring certainty to the home 
of its choice. In the wooded districts a Crow’s or Magpie’s nest is the 
usual situation chosen by the Kestrel in which to rear its young, and 
sometimes the nest of a Ring-Dove is used, and, more rarely still, an old 
Sparrow-Hawk’s. It is also worthy of remark, that when a Magpie’s nest 
is chosen the rooty lining is usually removed, probably from motives of 
cleanliness, and the eggs are laid on the hard lining of mud. As incuba- 
tion advances the pellets containing the refuse of the bird’s food accumu- 
late, and serve as a lining, beautifully soft, on which the eggs rest secure. 
Six eggs is the number usually found, although in some cases the number 
has been seven, and in others so few as four or five. They are rich 
reddish brown of various shades upon a dirty or creamy white ground. 
VOL. I. E 
