2 9 B 'ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



that the damage to game done by some of them 

 is either nothing or negligible. Among the most 

 innocent in this sense are the owls, and next to 

 them come the buzzards and the almost extinct 

 kite, while hardly more injurious to game than 

 these are the kestrel and sparrow-hawk. The 

 kestrel, on the other hand, as a great vole and 

 field-mouse destroyer, is an eminently useful bird. 

 As a result of the spread of this knowledge, 

 there is somewhat more toleration of the lesser 

 hawks than there used to be, and in some parts 

 of the country they are increasingly common. 



