52 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



for which the benevolent author of the Essays has 

 pleaded more eloquently than the poor kestrel or 

 windhover (Falco tinnunculus), and, I may add, 

 none more deserving of his powerful intercession. 

 Of all our Raptores it is perhaps with the excep- 

 tion of the barn owl the most efficient destroyer 

 of mice, and as a general check upon the increase 

 of noxious small quadrupeds and reptiles, its ex- 

 ertions far surpass those of any other British bird 

 of prey. Its favourite food appears to be the 

 long-tailed field-mouse (Mm sylvaticus), whose 

 depredations on the bark and upper roots of 

 young timber and fruit trees are notorious ; it is 

 also known to consume vast quantities of beetles, 

 which in the larva state are injurious to vege- 

 tation; and I have myself seen a female of this 

 species seize, carry off, and ultimately kill a full- 

 grown rat. I was walking at the time on a high 

 road near Petworth, which was flanked on either 

 side by a deep ditch ; about a hundred yards in 

 front lay a large heap of stones, and in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood were several newly gleaned 

 stubble fields : over one of these hovered a female 

 kestrel ; I was admiring her graceful evolutions, 

 and the apparent ease with which, in the face of 

 a strong westerly breeze, she remained poised as 

 it were in the air, when she suddenly darted over 

 the hedge which separated the field from the road, 



