TRAGEDY IN NATURE 



BENEATH the ancient beeches I came across the 

 body of a kestrel, a male in all the beauty of its 

 nuptial dress. For many weeks I had watched this bird, 

 had heard its cheerful note when it made love to its mate, 

 had seen it circling and wheeling round her, and had 

 admired and wondered at its easy hovering flight when it 

 beat the meadow for food. The nest of the pair was hi a 

 hollow timber near by, and probably the eggs were laid; 

 but the keeper had also seen the birds, and now one, 

 widowed, was left to bring up the family. Beneath the 

 nesting tree lay pellets cast up by the birds, fur and small 

 bones of mammals, shining elytra of beetles and other 

 rejectamenta; but they contained no bones of game-birds, 

 nothing, indeed, to justify the murder. One russet wing 

 was smashed, and there was a cruel shot rent in the neck; 

 but the bright yellow cere, the blue-striped head, the broad- 

 banded, widespread tail, and the creamy throat and 

 cheeks were unstained by blood. The yellow legs were 

 drawn up, the claws clenched, the bill half open; fierce to 

 the last, he had died in an attitude of defiance. Of what 

 use had been my arguments that the bird was a farmer's 

 friend, my warning that to slay it was breaking the law ? 

 To the keeper it was a hawk, and so must die. 



The dead kestrel is but a single example of the daily, 

 hourly destruction that wasteth the animals and plants: 

 one tragedy out of countless thousands. In the broad 

 parkland, where the bird lay, evidences of the ever-present 

 struggle for very existence are ever before us. Here 



