yb KESTREL. 



friend the Rev. R. P. Alington, in the engraving which is the 

 accompaniment of this description, and from which the bird 

 derives one of its vernacular names, it is, for the most part, 

 about to drop upon an insect. Small birds, such as sparrows, 

 larks, chaffinches, blackbirds, linnets, and goldfinches, frequently 

 form part of its food, but one in confinement, while it would 

 eat any of these, invariably refused thrushes. The larvae of 

 water insects have also been known to have been fed on by 

 them, and in one instance a leveret or rabbit, and in another 

 a rat. Slow-worms, frogs, and lizards are often articles of 

 their food, as also earth-worms, and A. E. Knox, Esq. pos- 

 sesses one shot in Sussex, in the act of killing a large adder. 

 Another has been seen devouring a crab, and another, a tame 

 one, the result doubtless of its education, as man has been 

 defined to be 'a cooking animal,' a hot roasted pigeon. 'De 

 gustibus non disputandum.' 



'The Kestrel,' says the late Bishop Stanley, 'has been known 

 to dart upon a weasel, an animal nearly its equal in size and 

 weight, and actually mount aloft with it. As in the case of 

 the Eagle, it suffered for its temerity, for it had not .proceeded 

 far when both were observed to fall from a considerable height. 

 The weasel ran off unhurt, but the Kestrel was found to have 

 been killed by a bite in the throat.' He adds also, 'not 

 long ago some boys observed a Hawk flying after a Jay, which 

 on reaching, it immediately attacked, and both fell on a 

 stubble field, where the contest appeared to be carried on; the 

 boys hastened up, but too late to save the poor Jay, which 

 was at the last gasp; in the agonies of death, however, it 

 had contrived to infix and entangle its claws so firmly in 

 the Hawk's feathers, that the latter, unable to escape, was 

 carried off by the boys, who brought it home, when on ex- 

 amination, it proved to be a Kestrel.' The Windhover . has 

 often been known to pounce on the decoy birds of bird-catchers, 

 and has in his turn been therefore entrapped by them, in 

 prevention of future losses of the same kind. 



It is a curious fact that notwithstanding their preying on 

 small birds, the latter will sometimes remain in the trees in 

 which they are, without any sign of terror or alarm. They have 

 been known to carry off 3 r oung chickens and pigeons. When 

 feeding on insects which are of light weight, they devour 

 them in the air, and have been seen to take a cockchaffer in 

 each claw. Bewick says that the Kestrel swallows mice whole, 

 and ejects the hair afterwards from its mouth in round pellets 



