ITS DISTRIBUTION IN SUMMER. 57 



temperature of England is remarkably mild long 

 after the sun has descended into the southern 

 hemisphere."* 



Throughout the whole of the weald, which 

 comprehends about half the county of Sussex, 

 the kestrel or windhover is moderately dispersed 

 during the breeding-season. In this wooded dis- 

 trict it adopts the deserted nest of the carrion 

 crow or magpie, but although I have taken consi- 

 derable pains to ascertain, from constant personal 

 observation during several years, the extent of its 

 distribution here at this season, even in those lo- 

 calities where it was obviously of more frequent 

 occurrence than in others, I could never find that 

 it was numerous as a species in any portion of 

 this region. For instance, on a well-wooded manor 

 of nearly two thousand acres, where game and 

 gamekeepers had been equally scarce for many 

 years, I could not discover more than four esta- 

 blishments of the windhover during an entire 

 spring and summer, although I explored every 

 crow's nest that I could find, and frightened 

 many a magpie out of its own lawful habitation. 

 Now admitting that an equal number had escaped 

 my detection which I think is scarcely possible 



* ' Essays on Natural History,' first series, 3rd edition, 

 page 261. 



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