KESTREL. 
FALCO TINNUNCULUS. 
Tiie Kestrel is without doubt the most numerous as well as the best known of the Hawk tribe that frequent 
the British Islands. In every county and in the greater part of the islands I have visited, this species appears 
common, readily adapting its mode of living to the nature of the country it inhabits. 
Though not generally so regarded, it is one of our most useful birds, being a decided ally both to the 
farmer and the game-preserver. I have been so frequently assured that Kestrels have been detected preying 
upon young game, that I suppose some misguided old bird must, when greatly pressed by the cares of providing 
for a hungry brood, have snatched some precocious young Pheasant from the neighbourhood of the coops, 
and, like many another poor bungling thief, been caught at the first attempt, while the greater rogues go free. 
The rats alone that these birds destroy while procuring food for their young would commit ten times more 
damage in one year than the poor inoffensive Kestrels could possibly effect in their whole lives. I observe 
most authors draw attention to the number of mice on which this species preys, and simply mention rats as 
rather an exception to the general bill of fare. I particularly remarked some years hack, when I was engaged 
in taking notes regarding their food and habits, that rats (none less than three-parts grown and many full- 
sized) formed a part, and in some instances the whole, of the food that the old birds had provided for their 
brood at a dozen nests I examined in various districts in Scotland. 
During the winter of 1881 I had several opportunities of observing the prey captured by a couple of 
Kestrels that frequented the rush-marshes in the neighbourhood of one of the larger broads in the cast 
of Norfolk. It was seldom that they strayed far from two or three plantations which formed their head 
quarters, being usually seen, at almost any hour of the day, hunting over the marshes or perched on either 
some small hush or the raised bank of a water-dyke. In every instance when I examined the spot where 
they had devoured their prey, I discovered that they had been feeding on the large brown field-mouse. 
Occasionally they appeared to have consumed every portion of flesh, hone, and skin, and the only vestige 
remaining was that portion of the intestine containing the green food on which these animals subsist ; at times 
they had plucked off a considerable quantity of the fur, which was scattered in small clots round' the open 
space where they had made their meal. 1 
I never yet heard of the young of either Partridges or Pheasants being carried off from wild broods • 
neither have I seen young Grouse among the victims on their nesting-places. Since the habits of birds of 
prey are gradually becoming better understood by game-preservers, and as keepers (with but very few 
exceptions) are by no means the ignorant class of men that certain writers have been pleased to describe them 
it may bo hoped that the Kestrel will long continue as plentiful as it now is. I am convinced that if onlJ 
the neighbourhood of the coops were strictly guarded, but little harm could possibly be laid to their chirm, 
It frequently happens that the blame is laid on those that are by no means the most guilty. There is 
little doubt that the losses attributed to the Kestrel are in many instances inflicted by Sparrow Hawks or 
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