82 THE KESTREL AND 



as if a bird to the manner born. There is in his bold 

 bearing no hurry of movement which is not spon- 

 a lord of taneous. He sails ' with supreme dominion through 

 y ~~ the azure deeps of air ', and surveys their expanse 

 and abyss around and beneath him with the glance of 

 undisputed sovereignty. He stops without effort or 

 restraint, and hovers even against a gale with perfect 

 self-control, as if independent of the laws of nature 

 to drop at will to the ground plumb as a stone or 

 a falling star, or to recover and continue his progress at so 

 a lower elevation. There is no greed or cruelty in his 

 and no dark eye, which wears only a look of command. No 

 tyrant. tyrant is he : the smaller birds, of whom he takes 

 tax, disport in his presence at respectful distance, but 

 with scarcely any fear. And his talons, though strong, 

 are not obtrusively bared, as if for bloodshed, and 

 outstretched to gripe and crush, like those of the 

 yellow-eyed sparrowhawk. He strikes, and takes, 

 but not without warning. Compared with him, the 

 sparrowhawk is a butcher. By the kestrel's removal eo 

 there would be lost to the sky an ornament, and a 

 display of graceful movement, which it is a delight 

 and a lesson to look upon. 



It is not in fierceness and in the fear which he 

 inspires in the non-predacious birds, neither is it on 

 the whole in his figure, that the kestrel shows his 

 superiority to the sparrowhawk. It is in his dis- 

 position and in the style of his flight. Nobody with 

 eyes need mistake the one bird for the other. Not 

 only is the kestrel's leg shorter and stouter : he has TO 

 a much longer wing ; he has the distinctive mark of 

 the falcon's tooth on each side of the upper mandible 

 a mark which the hawk wants; and his colours 



