476 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



English estates the harmlessness of this bird is fully 

 recognised, and every encouragement is given it to 

 breed by the erection of these nesting-boxes. By 

 way of illustration we may cite a case where, on an 

 estate in Kent in 1900, five of these boxes were 

 erected 20 or 30 feet from the ground round a 

 single field, all of which were tenanted by kestrels ; 

 and though a thousand young pheasants were 

 reared in this field, not a single one of these 

 was missed by the keepers. Besides its human 

 enemies, the kestrel has to contend with crows 

 and rooks, which spare no efforts to seize its eggs 

 whenever the opportunity presents itself. The eggs, 

 it should be mentioned, are of a bright ruddy 

 colour, but, like those of the peregrine falcon, 

 lose much of their freshness of colouring during 

 incubation. Four or five in number, they are laid 

 at intervals of two days or so, incubation com- 

 mencing with the deposition of the first egg ; as 

 a result, the first nestling hatched may be more 

 than a week older than the last. 



The food of the kestrel appears to consist 

 mainly of mice, but frogs, earthworms, grasshoppers, 

 cockchafers, and other beetles are also taken. 

 Kestrels will also eat dead animals, as is proved by 

 the fact that they are not seldom found dead from 

 eating poisoned rats laid out for magpies. One 

 instance 



Phita by W. P. Dandt, F.Z.S.] \_R,[,nfi fart 



ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD 



Frequent in the British Islands 



is on rec- 

 ord where 

 a kestrel 

 was taken 



with its claws entangled in the fur of a stoat, which 

 fiercely defended itself. It is an easy matter, for 

 those who will take the trouble, to find out what is 

 the staple diet of the kestrel ; for if the nest and its 

 neighbourhood be searched, numerous small rounded 

 pellets of the size of a chestnut will be found, which, 

 when broken up, will prove to be composed of the 

 hard and indigestible parts of what has been swallowed. 

 The majority of such pellets are made up of the fur 

 and bones of mice. 



The little AMERICAN " SPARROW-HAWK," which, as . 

 we have already pointed out, is really a species of 

 kestrel, appears to be almost exclusively insectivorous 

 during the summer months, preying mainly upon 

 grasshoppers. An American ornithologist, Mr. Hen- 

 shaw, writing on the subject, remarks that during a 

 scourge of grasshoppers the sparrow-hawks assembled 

 in hundreds; and although on this occasion, owing 

 to the vast myriads in which these insects had col- 

 lected, the birds could make no visible impression, yet 



Phtlo by If. P. Dande, F.Z.S. 



MARTIAL HAWK-EAGLE 



The Hawk-eagles skoiv a marked preference for 

 woody districts 



