276 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



hover when in search of prey, or when it appears but a 

 speck in the highest ether, suspended as it were like Juno 

 with a cord from heaven. You know Juno's story? On 

 account of the severity with which she persecuted 

 Hercules, Jupiter ordered her to be suspended between 

 heaven and earth with a golden chain. How aptly this 

 applies to the Kestrel ! You see the bird motionless as 

 it were, but cast your telescope in the direction, and you 

 find he is in a perpetual quiver. Notice how he courses 

 with slow and majestic flight on his unknown tour 

 through the air, or with a few strokes of those long wings 

 and ample tail he visits the lower atmosphere, and goes 

 skimming over the smiling fields and hedgerows in search 

 of prey. 



With the Hawk we are apt to associate a deadly 

 enemy to the little songsters that hop from spray to 

 spray around us ; but certainly with the Kestrel it is a 

 decided error. Mice and coleopterous insects form his 

 only food in summer ; but in winter, when the mice are 

 for the most part lying dormant and the insects seldom 

 seen, he occasionally preys upon the smaller birds, but 

 only as a last resource, for by the way the little birds 

 receive his advances I am certain they know him not 

 as an enemy. Of the countless numbers of mice the 

 Windhover destroys I am reluctant to speak, for many 

 persons will scarcely credit that this bird, in the breed- 

 ing season, will and does destroy as many as thirty mice 

 in a day. Calculate this, all landowners, game pre- 

 servers, gardeners, and agriculturists, and molest not 

 the Kestrel. We have not yet said anything about the 

 beetles. Let us examine this pellet — for be it known 

 all birds of the Hawk tribe cast up the refuse of their 

 food in the form of pellets — taken from a nest of this 

 bird. In it we find the bones and skins of several mice, 



