OF THE MARSH 187 



It might have puzzled an observer to divine why 

 the Kestrel should care to maintain its position 

 under such bombardment from above, for below it 

 was but a heap of some hundreds of rusty pots and 

 pans which had been shot down there an accumula- 

 tion of years. But, a rat in a superannuated coffee 

 pot is in his home and fortress, so long as he remains 

 in it; when he leaves it to pay a visit to his friends 

 in the ditch, he takes his life, so to say, in his hands. 

 The rat knows this, and it explains the caution with 

 which he bolts across the open ; the Kestrel also 

 knows it, and will hover about the heap for half an 

 hour at a stretch so as to give him a long chance of 

 doing so. 



Many a time this summer I have seen the Kestrel 

 make its catch, letting itself down by jerks from its 

 hovering place, and then, at the last, dropping, a 

 dead weight, to earth, with outstretched legs, and 

 claws spread to clutch. Then it rises and after a 

 little adjustment of its sometimes still struggling 

 victim, grips it close like a little package beneath its 

 belly, and makes off rapidly on a high line for home 

 and the waiting young ones. 



I should think that few persons can have the 

 Kestrel more continuously under observation than I, 

 and yet, contrary to the generally accepted theory 

 that this hawk occasionally, at any rate, strikes birds, 

 I am unable to record, after years of watching that I 

 have, upon any occasion, seen it do so. Further, I 

 have upon only two occasions in my own district, 

 come upon those tell-tale circles of feathers on the 

 ground, in one case those of a House-sparrow, in 

 the other of a Meadow-pipit, and though this may 



