FALCONID^I. 15 



objection, as it would readily take a Wood Pigeon, 

 eat as much as it could, and try to hide the rest. 

 Starlings were the only birds I knew it refuse ; it 

 would, however, eat a Starling rather than starve. 

 If more food was given than it could eat at one time, 

 it would hide what it did not want in a corner of the 

 cage, and try to bury it by rubbing the sand in a 

 heap on it with its bill, much as a dog will do with 

 a bone under similar circumstances. It generally 

 plucked its birds tolerably clean before it ate them, 

 but not so clean as to prevent it swallowing a great 

 many feathers : these, as well as the bones and the 

 hair or fur of animals, like all hawks, it brings up in 

 small oblong pellets. The casting of these pellets 

 was, I think, necessary to the health of the bird ; for 

 when it had been fed on raw meat for some time it 

 ceased to bring up the pellets, and at such times 

 always seemed to mope and to be generally out of 

 condition. In giving this hawk a bird or mouse, 

 I observed that it always took it in its foot and im- 

 mediately gave it a sharp gripe with its beak across 

 the back of the neck or the head, which must prove 

 instantly fatal. 



Rats also seem to form part of the food of the 

 Kestrel ; for on one occasion I disturbed one when 

 busily engaged at his dinner behind some ricks. 

 Seeing him fly off with something in his feet, I fol- 

 lowed hirn up and got nearly within shot of him, 

 when he rose again with the same thing in his feet. 



