KESTREL 213 



as to appear a mere spot, a small moving shadow, against the sky. 

 It has shorter wings than other falcons, and, by consequence, a 

 more rapid and violent flight. 



The kestrel preys chiefly on mice and field- voles ; occasionally 

 it takes a small bird, and carries off young, tender chicks, if they 

 come in its way ; but it certainly does not deserve its scientific name 

 of alaudarius (a feeder on larks), which would have fitted the 

 hobby better. It also preys on frogs and coleopterous insects. Selby 

 relates that a kestrel was observed late one evening pursuing the 

 cockchafers, dashing at them and seizing one in each claw, eating 

 them in the air, and then returning to the charge. When on the 

 wing the kestrel's downward-gazing eyes are constantly on the look- 

 out for the mice that lurk on the surface, and as mice are usually well 

 concealed by the grass and herbage, the eyes must indeed be wonder- 

 fully sharp to detect them. After remaining suspended for some 

 seconds, sometimes for half a minute, or longer, during which the 

 bird watches the ground below, he dashes down upon his prey, or 

 flies on without descending, as if satisfied that what had been taken 

 for a mouse had turned out to be something different. 



When thus hovering motionless the wings are seen to beat rapidly 

 for a few seconds, then to become fixed and rigid for a moment 

 or two, after which the beating motion is renewed. A short 

 time ago I watched a kestrel thus hovering in the face of a very 

 violent wind, and it struck me that this suspension of the wings' 

 motion in such circumstances was very extraordinary and hard to 

 explain. One can understand that, even in the face of a violent 

 gale, the bird is able to maintain its motionless position by sheer 

 muscular power ; but how happened it that in the short intervals, 

 when the outspread wings became fixed and motionless, that the 

 bird was not instantly blown from its position ? 



In its breeding habits the kestrel, like the starling and jackdaw, 

 lias a partiality for towers and lofty ruins, and it also nests in 

 holes in rocks and hollow trees. In woods it frequently takes 

 possession of a disused nest of a crow or magpie. The eggs are 

 four or five, blotched with dull red on a reddish white ground ; and 

 in many eggs the ground-colour is quite covered with red. 



The kestrel, among British birds of prey, is a favourite with the 

 ornithologist in virtue of its interesting habits ; and it deserves to 

 be equally esteemed by the farmer on account of its usefulness. 

 It is, indeed, the only bird of diurnal habits that wages incessant 

 warfare against the prolific and injurious mice, and thus carries on 



