The Zoologist — September, 1871. 2747 



friend kept one of them alive for several weeks by feeding it on salt meat 

 steeped for some time in fresh water. But none of the birds lived long, in 

 consequence of no fresh food being obtainable for them.' 



" Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., has very kindly taken the trouble to collect 

 information for us respecting the food of the present bird. 



" ' An instance is recorded in the ' Zoologist' of a kestrel eating a hooded 

 crow at Faversham : it was not seen to kill it. A keeper at Northrepps, 

 near Cromer, shot one in the act of pulling an earthworm out of the ground. 

 The same keeper has satisfactorily ascertained that they take the young 

 pheasants from the coops when they have nestlings of their own ; but I do 

 not believe they are destructive to game at any other time, though I once 

 heard of an authentic case of one killing a quail. On the 28th of November, 

 1843, my father dissected a kestrel, and found in it the remains of an ear- 

 wig. They have been shot in the act of sucking eggs of the missel thrush. 

 Another bird, shot at Hampstead on the 11th of May, 1866, contained the 

 remains of a rat; but mice are their common food. Mr. Hepburn, writing 

 in Macgillivray's ' British Birds,' makes a calculation that a single kestrel 

 will destroy 10,395 mice in 210 days ; but I can hardly credit it. Gunu, 

 the Norwich birdstuflfer, found frogs in the stomach of one, and, asking in 

 the ' Zoologist ' if anyone had met with a parallel instance, elicited the fact 

 that one had been shot at Reading in the act of grasping a slowworm. In 

 the crop of another, shot in May in the Isle of Wight, were found several 

 spotted newts. Another, shot not very far from DarUngton, contained 

 seventy-nine caterpillars, twenty-four beetles, a field-mouse, and a leech two 

 inches and a half in length. Another was killed when devouring a crab ; 

 and in that rare book. Hunt's ' British Birds,' the kestrel is represented 

 eating a mole. Several instances are recorded in which a kestrel ' caught a 

 Tartar.' The bird, having descended on an object on the ground, was seen 

 to rise hurriedly, fly right up into the air, and then to drop down lifeless, 

 when a weasel ran away ; and when the observer picked up the bird he 

 found its neck bitten out. I am not aware that this singular instance of 

 instinct at fault, which has now occurred several times, is mentioned in any 

 standard work. Many instances are recorded of kestrels fighting, and of 

 their being shot in the act. An old and a young male are stuffed in the act 

 of grappling one another in the Dover Museum ; and under them is written, 

 " These two hawks, in a furious fight, clutched one another, and, falling into 

 the sea, were drowned." ' 



" On the nidification of the kestrel, Mr. Gurney adds ; — 



" ' In June, 1847, my father saw a kestrel's nest near Norwich in the 

 hollow of a pollard oak, like an owl's. The six nestlings and the old birds 

 are now stuffed, in my possession. I have known two instances of kestrels 

 laying and hatching in confinement, and have read of a third. They 

 generally nest in crows' and magpies'_ nests, and will try to dispossess the 



