KESTREL. 49 



singing on all sides ; the air^ with the balmy freshness only known in the 

 vernal season, is resonant with melody; but high uj) in the air above you 

 the Kestrels are sailing and chasing each other. Several are in the air 

 together; and their flight is now graceful in the extreme — darting down- 

 wards, soaring aloft, and making the woods and rocks resound with their 

 peculiar notes. It is their love-season, too; and at this period the Kestrel 

 is more noisy than at any other time of the year. Their chorus of cries, 

 high up in the blue sky, rendered musical by the distance — Jceelie, keelie, 

 kee-kee-kee — is varied by a harsh chattering cry. 



The Kestrel appears to delay its nesting-season until field-mice and insects 

 are plentiful. The Kestrel generally breeds in the thickest woods, and rarely 

 in nests built in isolated trees. It also rears its young on the cliffs by the 

 sea-side ; and some of the best places to seek for its eggs are the rocks on 

 the moors and the cliffs of limestone districts. The Kestrel will also not 

 unfrequently lay her eggs in holes of buildings, notably amongst ivied ruins 

 and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals, in company with Doves and Jack- 

 daws. When the eggs are laid in the crevices of rocks, a little cavity is, 

 if possible, scratched in the soft earth or vegetable refuse, or, failing 

 this, some natural cavity in the rock itself is chosen in which to deposit 

 the eggs. I once took five Kestrel's eggs out of an old Raven's nest in 

 the cleft of a perpendicular cliff at Howden Chest, in the High Peak of 

 Derbyshire. It was an elaborate and highly finished structure, doubtless 

 composed of the materials brought by the Ravens twenty years before, but 

 evidently rebuilt for the occasion. It was almost fiat; the centre was 

 about 7 inches across, a slight hollow in a bed of peat, lined with bits of 

 heath. Around this centre was a broad ring, 7 inches wide, very regularly 

 and evenly made of the thick charred stalks of Hng which had escaped the 

 fire when the heath was burnt, now bleached white with age. It is very 

 probable that the Kestrel is a life-paired bird, like other members of its 

 order ; and every season it will, if left unmolested, return to the same place 

 to rear its young. Even if one of the birds be destroyed, the other will 

 quickly find another mate, and return with unerring certainty to the home 

 of its choice. In the wooded districts a Crow's or Magpie's nest is the 

 usual situation chosen by the Kestrel in which to rear its young, and 

 sometimes the nest of a Ring-Dove is used, and, more rarely still, an old 

 Sparrow-Hawk's. It is also worthy of remark, that when a Magpie's nest 

 is chosen the rooty lining is usually removed, probably from motives of 

 cleanliness, and the eggs are laid on the hard lining of mud. As incuba- 

 tion advances the pellets containing the refuse of the bird's food accumu- 

 late, and serve as a lining, beautifully soft, on which the eggs rest secure. 



Six eggs is the number usually found, although in some cases the number 

 has been seven, and in others so few as four or five. They are rich 

 reddish brown of various shades upon a dirty or creamy white ground. 



VOL. I. E 



