KESTREL. 61 
under tail-coverts rufous fawn colour, without spots; under 
surface of the tail-feathers greyish white, with imperfect 
dark transverse bars, terminating with the black band and 
white tips, as on the upper surface; the legs and toes 
yellow ; the claws black. 
In the female, the top of the head is reddish fawn colour, 
striped darker longitudinally; the whole of the back, 
wings, upper tail-coverts, and tail, reddish brown, barred 
transversely with bluish black ; wing-primaries darker than 
m the male: the whole under surface of the body of a 
paler ferruginous colour, but streaked on the breast and 
spotted lower down, as in the male; under surface of the 
tail-feathers more uniform in colour and less distinctly 
barred than in the male. 
Young males are like the female till after their first 
winter, but begin by slow degrees of change in colour to 
exhibit the plumage which distinguishes the male after 
having completed their first year. 
Mr. John Atkinson of Leeds, in his compendium of 
the Ornithology of Great Britain, says of the Kestrel, 
“Our tame specimens, having their wings cut to prevent 
escape, exhibited great adroitness in climbing the trunk of 
a tree.” 
