20 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



of our country. Visiting our shores in April, it leaves us again 

 before winter. It usually selects a high tree to nest in, very 

 often appropriating the old year's or deserted nest of some other 

 bird Hawk, or Magpie, or Crow to be its bridal home. It lays 

 two or three (very rarely four) eggs, beautiful, as all the Falcons' 

 eggs are, and leaving no doubt as to their Falcon original to 

 any one who is able to tell even "a Hawk from a Heronsheugh." 

 They are of a nearly uniform pale dull red in ground-colour, 

 thickly spotted and mottled with shades of deeper red. Larks 

 and other small birds are taken often after lengthened chases 

 but, besides its feathered prey, the Hobby doubtless destroys 

 large numbers of beetles and other insects of any considerable 

 size. Fig. 4, plate I. 



11. RED-FOOTED FALCON (Falcorufipes). 



Also Orange-legged Hobby, Red-legged Falcon. Only a rare 

 visitant, and very little known about either its nest or eggs. 



12. MERLIN (Fako asalon). 



Also Stone-falcon, Blue Hawk. This beautiful bird makes itf 

 nest, in moor-land districts at least, almost invariably on the 

 ground ; though it is rather a piece of flattery to say that it 

 makes a nest at all. A little hollow in the ground, and that 

 usually not too conspicuous by the absence of ling in its vici- 

 nity, with scarcely any lining, receives the eggs, three to five in 

 number, and characterised by the reddish hue and spottings which 

 seem to garnish the eggs of almost all the true Falcons. The 

 nest is said to be sometimes built in a tree, and then, from Mr. 

 Doubleday's account, seems to be made of sticks, and lined with 

 wool. The Merlin, or Blue Hawk as he is usually called here, 

 is not a rare bird on our North Riding moors ; and a very bold 

 and active Hawk it is. Fig. 5, plate I. 



33. KESTREL (Falco tinnunculus). 



Also Windhover, Creshawk, Hoverhawk, Stannel or Stannel- 

 hawk ; query, Stand-gale, as Montagu writes one of its provin- 

 cial names Stone-gall. Windhover certainly suggests the meaning 

 of Stand-gale, and that word would be easily shortened into 

 Stannel. 



Who has not heard the sharp, ringing, half -laugh ing cry of 

 the Kestrel ? What nest-hunter has not often been warned by 

 that well-known sound, as he came near some scarp of rocks, 

 wood-beset, vvell qualified to furnish some ledge or crevice to 

 hold the loosely-compacted structure of sticks and wool which 

 does duty for this dainty-looking Hawk's nest ? Ye? , and have 



