THE MERLIN 361 



a broad, dark, transverse bar; the tip itself, however, 

 is white. The back is reddish with dark, triangular 

 markings ; the flanks light-coloured with black longi- 

 tudinal marks. The bill is curved from the base, and 

 is short and strongly hooked. Cere and feet are yellow. 

 The tail of the female has several narrow transverse bars, 

 with tip as in the male. For nesting places the Kestrel 

 chooses by preference ruins, towers, and lofty crags, very 

 seldom selecting a site in a tree. It lays four or five 

 eggs, rarely more than six. They are thickly spotted 

 and splashed with brownish-red on a light ground. 



The Merlin or Stone-hawk (Falco cesalon) is the 

 smallest bird of our British Falcons. It breeds regularly 

 on our moorlands, not in such numbers in the South 

 as beyond Derbyshire. In many parts of Wales too it 

 nests. It is fairly common too in the mountainous parts 

 of Ireland. In the autumn the dashing little fellow 7 

 comes down to the coast and bays where he can prey on 

 Dunlins, Snipe and other waders. He has high courage 

 and will kill birds you would not think him capable of 

 mastering. The Merlin will kill the Skylark if pinched 

 by hunger, but both he and the Hobby prefer birds of 

 the Finch family. 



