52 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



LETTER V. 



" Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." 



MEBCHANT OF VENICE. 



The Kestrel or Windhover Its unmerited Persecution 

 Destructive to four-footed Vermin, Reptiles, &c. 

 Seizure and Execution of a Rat Serpent-killer Mr. 

 Waterton on the Migration of the Windhover 

 Problem and attempted Solution Distribution of the 

 Kestrel Periodical appearance " en potence " in Au- 

 tumn Probable Cause Commissariat Department 

 Reappearance of considerable numbers in Spring. 



OF the various birds which figure undeservedly 

 on the black list of the gamekeeper, there is none 

 for which the benevolent author of the Essays* 

 has pleaded more eloquently than the poor kestrel 

 or windhover (Falco tinnunculus) , and, I may add, 

 none more deserving of his powerful intercession. 

 Of all our Raptores it is perhaps with the excep- 

 tion of the barn-owl the most efficient destroyer 

 of mice, and as a general check upon the increase 



* ' Essays on Natural History,' by C. Waterton, Esq. 



