NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



to the Devonshire Park, in the very heart of the 

 place. 



The kestrel is said to be, and undoubtedly is, largely 

 a summer immigrant ; yet it is equally certain that 

 some of these birds are always to be found throughout 

 the winter in many parts of the country. It is, I 

 think, undoubted that the main body of our English 

 kestrels move away east and south to warmer regions 

 towards September. Gamekeepers have often noticed 

 that these birds vanish just about the time that shoot- 

 ing begins. They reappear in February or March. 

 There can be no doubt that the young of those reared 

 in this country, when able to fend for themselves, seek 

 other quarters ; and it is pretty certain that many of 

 our British-born specimens wander far over the world 

 and revisit regularly their ancestral rearing-places. 

 The migration of predatory birds is a difficult subject, 

 at present not very much understood, even by our most 

 careful observers. Still it is indubitable that our 

 British kestrel {Tinnunciilus alaudarius) has a very 

 wide range and is one of the most persistent of cosmo- 

 politans. It is to be found through Asia, as far as 

 China and Japan, over much of Europe, in the Atlantic 

 Islands, and in various parts of upper Africa. It is 

 recorded in the Dark Continent as far south as Fanti 

 in the west and Mombasa in the east. In South Africa 

 it is replaced by a near ally, Tinnunciilus rupicolus, 

 the lesser South African kestrel, the Roode Valk (red- 

 hawk) and Steen Valk (rock-hawk) of the Dutch 

 colonists, which bears, in all its habits and its appear- 

 ance, a striking resemblance to its European cousin. 

 That great hunter and naturalist, the late C. J. Ander- 

 sson, records in the year 1865 a single example of the 

 true British kestrel, a female of which was shot by him 

 at Otjimbinque, in Damaraland. This is by far the 



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