120 THE KESTREL. 



dry grass, wool, or rabbit's fur. It begins to lay in the end of 

 April ; has usually five eggs, dark reddish brown, with spots 

 and blotches of a darker colour. They are lighter in colour, 

 smaller, and generally rounder than those of the sparrow-hawk. 

 On May 7th, 1855, I got two nests on large Scotch fir trees in 

 the " Old Fir Park " on Tentsmuir, one with two, the other 

 with four eggs, all fresh ; and on the 17th of May I got another 

 with five eggs, also fresh, in the same wood ; besides many other 

 nests at different times in April and May, nearly all on trees ; 

 one on the ivy at " Earlsha'," with three young ones ; in a 

 jackdaw's old nest, amongst other jackdaws' nests, also with 

 young ones ; and two on ledges of rock at Kinkell. I got one 

 with five eggs on one of the large Scotch firs on Tentsmuir, 

 within ten feet of a carrion crow's nest, with five young ones, on 

 the same tree — strange fellowship ! — and had I not climbed up 

 and seen them I would hardly have believed it. Like the sparrow- 

 hawk and other members of the family, it is tenacious of its 

 breeding haunts. As a proof of this, on the 12th of April, a 

 kestrel's nest, with two eggs, was got in an old carrion crow's on 

 a spruce fir in Lathockar Wood, and harried ; next week the 

 same bird laid other three eggs, also in an old nest, about seventy 

 yards away, these being also taken ; the bird returned to the 

 first nest, and laid again in the middle of May. But, as a rule, 

 all birds — especially falcon hawks and eagles, like owls, carrion 

 crows, or rooks, or even like human beings, who select certain 

 " rookeries " or dens to live in — cling to their locality and 

 habitation. So, if you harry a kestrel's nest of its eggs, and 

 return in a week or a fortnight, you are pretty sure to find more 

 eggs, either in the same nest or in another in the locality. It 

 will sometimes lay three or four times in one year in the same 

 nest if the eggs are taken. Nor is it too fastidious with whom 

 it associates, as the nest on the same tree with the carrion 

 crow's, and the other in the ivy amongst a lot of jackdaws in 

 old Earlsha' Castle show. 



The three young ones taken from the ivy at Earlsha' (then 

 in ruins) were brought to St Andrews, in June 1877. Two of 

 them had the usual red and black streaked livery, but although 

 barely full-fledged the other one had a blue head and tail, like 

 the adult male, which is unusual. Two of them lived upwards 

 of a year, and were accidentally killed. The blue-headed one 

 lived several years, quite tame, and assumed his full adult 

 plumage. They were all most expert at killing the cockroaches 

 in the house where they were kept — running about the kitchen 



