90 WILD LIFE IN THE TREE TOPS 



animals, or birds, particularly those kinds which prey upon other creatures, 

 instinctively practise in their youth the means by which they wiU ultimately 

 procure their food. Kittens devote an extraordinary amount of time to the 

 business of stalking one another round the table legs ; puppies exhaust themselves 

 by digging holes, and chewing bedroom slippers ; and the young Kestrels spend 

 hours, on the extremely limited space which the nest affords, in snatching 

 with lightning foot-stroke at any pieces of wood, bone, or other debris that may 

 chance to take their fancy. 



On this occasion I had arranged a small hole in the canvas of the observation 

 post quite close to my head, and by placing my eye closer to it could get a very 

 good view of the country below and of the distance away over the marshes, 

 where I noticed the male Kestrel generally did his hunting. 



As it turned out, this proved to be a useful move, for during the day I 

 heard the caU of the approaching male, and placing my eye to the peep hole 

 witnessed a pretty incident. 



He was returning from the direction of the marshes, and even from that 

 distance, probably some 200 yards away, I thought I could make out a little 

 limap beneath him, which I took to be the body of some victim that he was bring- 

 ing to the young. When he had got to within about 80 yards of the tree, I saw 

 the female fly from a bare branch on which she was sitting, and swing up to 

 him in the air. For a moment the two forms seemed locked together, and then 

 they swung apart, the one to retiu-n marshwards, and the other, now with the 

 prey in her talons, to come immediately on to the nest. 



She did not, however, stay to distribute the meal, apparently for the reason 

 that she considered that the young ones ought by this time to know how to help 

 themselves — an opinion that to some extent was justified, for one of the 

 young hawks ],ost no time in falling to upon it, and by turning his back 

 upon any one of the others that approached too closely and, as it were, forming 

 a tent out of his half-spread wings and tail, was able to enjoy his meal without 

 interruption. In fact the rest of the family seemed almost immediately to give 

 up the idea of attempting to share in the spoil, and resignedly carried on with 

 the work of preening and wing-stretching. It would almost seem that, at this 

 age, the young Kestrels utterly lacked any idea of initiative, or persistence, 

 for only the individual who had first seized the food showed any signs of keen- 

 ness for it — ^the remainder merely trying in a half-hearted way for a share, and 

 then standing on the edge of the nest listlessly gazing into space, imtil it occurred 

 to them to do something more useful. 



Later in the day the male Kestrel came in with a field mouse in his talons. 

 This the female took from him as before, and brought to the nest, where it was 

 quickly devoured by the youngster that was lucky enough to grab it in the first 

 place. 



I particularly noticed that this mouse had not been plucked, and it is 



