1 88 DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY. 



pine-tree at a height of about six feet from the ground. It was rather loosely 



constructed of a few dry sticks and a small quantity of coarse hay ; it then 



contained two eggs ; both parents were seen, lired at, and missed. On the 



31st he revisited the nest, which still held but two eggs, and again missed the 



birds. Several days later he made another visit thereto, and, to his surprise, 



the eggs and parents had disappeared. His first impression was that some other 



person had taken them ; after looking carefully around he perceived both birds at 



a short distance, and this led him to institute a search which soon resulted in 



finding that the eggs must have been removed by the parent birds to the face of a 



muddy bank at least forty yards distant from the original nest. A few decayed 



leaves had been placed under them, but nothing else in the way of lining. A third 



egg had been added in the interim." 



The small falcons, of which the common kestrel or windhover is 

 Kestrels. 



the most familiar representative, constitute an extensive and easily 



recognised group of the genus, distributed all over the globe with the exception 



of Oceania. They are all short-toed birds, agreeing with the gerfalcons in the 



proportionate lengths of the second and fourth digits; but resembling the 



peregrines in the length of their wings, as shown by the interval between the 



tips of the primary and secondary quills exceeding half the length of the tail. 



They have a peculiar and characteristic type of coloration, easy of recognition 



but difficult of description ; and in the majority of the species (as shown in the 



figure of the lesser kestrel on p. 190) the plumage is very diflferently coloured 



in the two sexes, the hen-birds being barred, while the cocks are more uniform. 



Although the common kestrel feeds chiefly on mice, many of tlie other species 



subsist to a great extent on insects. 



The common or true kestrel {¥. tinnunculus) derives its name of windhover 



from its habit of hanging suspended in mid-air, with its wings in rapid motion, 



its fan-like tail spread out, and its head directed to windward. When in this 



position it spies a mouse or small bird below, it drops upon it suddenly and 



noiselessly with unerring aim. The male kestrel, which attains a length of 12| 



inches, has a yellow cere and limbs, bluish beak, and black claws. The crown of 



the head, nape, and cheeks are ashy grey with dark streaks; the upper -parts 



reddish fawn, with a small black spot on each feather; the quills blackish grey 



with lighter margins ; and the tail-feathers ashy grey, with a single broad black 



band near the end, and the extreme tips white. Beneath, the general colour is pale 



rufous fawn, with dark spots or streaks, both of which disappear on the thighs and 



under tail-coverts; while the tail is greyish white with indistinct bars. The 



female, which scarcely exceeds her consort in size, differs by the top of the head 



being reddish fawn with dark streaks, the upper-parts being banded with bluish 



black, and the tail rufous with several incomplete black bars. The young males 



are nearly like the females, the tail changing blue first and the head last. Our 



illustration represents a female in which the bars are not so well defined as in 



some specimens. A further specialisation in the kestrel would involve a similar 



change of colour in the female ; and to this there is an approximation in a dark 



southern race, where the rump and part of the tail of the hen-bird tend to blue. 



The kestrel ranges over the whole of Europe and Northern Asia, migrating in 



