ASSISTED VISION 295 



short-winged hawks. Despite his warlike mien and 

 active habits, the kestrel is almost guiltless of 

 destroying game. His staple diet consists of mice, 

 beetles, and large moths; and if at times he is 

 tempted to lift a young pheasant from the coops, it 

 is an exceptional lapse from virtue which may well 

 be overlooked, in consideration of the good service 

 this bird renders to farmers and gardeners. 1 



Turning your glass now upon the shore, a great 

 variety of life is revealed. Oyster-catchers are busily 

 running to and fro in showy liveries of black and 

 white, with legs and bills like red sealing-wax 

 * beaked and membered gules,' as the heralds would 

 blazon it. The colouration of birds is a perpetual 

 puzzle. Why should oyster-catchers have such con- 

 spicuous plumage, while the redshanks feeding 

 beside and among them, resemble them only in the 

 hue of their bills and feet, the prevailing tinge 

 in their plumage being ash-brown ? If protective 

 colour have all the advantage claimed for it, how 

 comes it that the gay oyster-catcher seems to 



1 Partial as I am to kestrels, and convinced of their blameless 

 habits in general, I must admit that certain individuals acquire a 

 depraved taste for young hand-reared pheasants, and that when 

 they take to frequenting the coops there is nothing for it but to 

 shoot them. 



