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In the Azores it is only an occasional visitant. Mr. Godman has kindly lent us the only 

 specimen he has received from those islands ; and we find it to be identical with the British bird. 

 Of all the Hawks this is the one with which we are most familiar. What dweller in the 

 country but knows the Kestrel, and has watched him poised aloft on quivering wing, scanning 

 with eager eye the ground beneath, until his prey is spied and secured by his downward swoop 1 

 Were it not for the mistaken ignorance of the farmer and gamekeeper, this pretty Falcon 

 would be far more common ; and it is small credit to the farmer to allow this useful bird to be 

 slaughtered by day, and its coadjutor, the Barn Owl, by night, both of them subsisting on the 

 field-mice and other small animals most injurious to his interests. The Kestrel is one of the 

 last Falcons to disappear as the country becomes cultivated, and may be seen almost anywhere, 

 more abundantly perhaps near cultivated ground than on the moors or barren heaths, carefully 

 quartering the ground in search of prey, now hovering in the air and scrutinizing a particular 

 spot, now sailing at a great altitude above the ground, and every now and then pouncing down 

 on its prey, which if it fails to secure, it recommences its search with unwearied assiduity. Its 

 food consists chiefly of field-mice, large insects, which it seizes and devours on the wing, grass- 

 hoppers, frogs, young or small birds ; and it rarely, if ever, attacks any thing larger than a Lark. 

 Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., informs us that a Kestrel was once seen engaged in eating a Hooded 

 Crow, the largest game we have ever heard of this bird devouring. It does not, so far as we can 

 ascertain (except on rare occasions), ever prey on young Partridges, though Mr. Stevenson, in his 

 ' Birds of Norfolk,' states : — " That some Kestrels carry off young Partridges as well as other 

 small birdsduring the nesting-season is too well authenticated as a fact for even their warmest 

 advocates to gainsay; yet still the amount of good which the species generally effects through- 

 out the year by destroying large quantities of mice, moles, insects and worms, should entitle it 

 rather to protection at the hands of the farmer than annihilation for occasional raids upon the 

 keeper's preserves." On the other hand, Naumann says, " It seldom gets hold of young Par- 

 tridges, as the watchful mother protects them at the risk of her own life." There is no doubt 

 strict truth in the statements of both the above-mentioned ornithologists ; but we think that the 

 capture of young game by the Kestrel is only occasional, and that the bird only does this when 

 other food is scarce, or, more probably, when hard driven to find food for. its own young ; for it 

 will be remembered that at the time the Kestrel breeds there must be a less quantity of mice 

 to be captured, on account of the long grass and corn. It is generally in the stubble-fields 

 that the Kestrel finds an abundance of food ; and the bird may often be seen in the twilight, 

 standing out in bold relief against the sky, as it hovers in the fields of sheaved corn, from which 

 the harvestmen have just retired. The Kestrel is more active in the early morning and at dusk 

 than in the daytime. During the heat of the day it is not much seen, but keeps to the thick 

 woods, sometimes soaring above them and wheeling in circles. Occasionally four or five may be 

 thus observed at once in the large woods. 



Ancient ruins near cultivated places, or, in the wilder countries, rocky localities are the 

 favourite haunts of the Kestrel. In large towns where old churches or cathedrals are found, 

 there also these Falcons congregate, and breed in large numbers in the belfries and towers ; in 

 countries where the Lesser Kestrel is found, the two species frequent the same localities. It nests 

 in holes of ruins and in church-towers, or under the eaves of old buildings, in holes and clefts of 



