86 THE KESTREL AND 



appropriation that only betokens intimacy and good 

 neighbourhood, in view of the immense service done 

 for man by the kestrel. The bird deserves protection ; 

 but, at least, its useful work is now generally recog- 

 nized by intelligent sportsmen and landowners, though 

 even yet, from inveterate habit, a blundering game- 

 keeper metes out to the unhappy bird a shower of 

 lead pellets by way of reward for its services. It is iso 

 to the sparrowhawk that the keeper should transfer 

 his whole attention, the depredations of that poaching 

 bird seriously affecting the fortunes of both game and 

 poultry. For his sins the whole of the smaller falcon 

 tribe have been made to suffer. 



The nest of the kestrel is sometimes built in a tree, 

 an( ^ j ^ ru ^ n to tell, he is more inclined to appropriate 

 an old nest, the creation and property of some other 

 bird, crow or pigeon, than have the trouble of con- 

 structing one for himself. But his usual nesting-site 190 

 is in the crevice of some beetling cliff or inaccessible 

 rock, or among the ruins of some forsaken castle or 

 other high building. He thus seems to share in the 

 eagle's preference for a solitary abode. The sparrow- 

 hawk likes rather the security of leafy woods, where, 

 maugre the gamekeeper's watchful enmity, he lives 

 like an Ishmaelite and thrives. If the sparrowhawk 

 appropriates the nest of some other creature, crow, 

 heron, or squirrel, it almost invariably uses it as a 

 foundation for its own structure. Like most birds of 200 

 prey, both the kestrel and the sparrowhawk are easily 

 served with a house : the nest of either is, at best, 

 a sorry structure, being little more than a loose plat- 

 form of sticks or roots ; and, in the case of the kestrel, 

 even this meagre apology for a nest is occasionally 



