663 
Wild Birds Useful and Injurious. 
An abundance of kestrels and other mouse-eating birds would 
therefore act as a most efficient check on the vole plague in 
Scotland, or in any other locality unfortunate enough to suffer 
from a similar visitation. One of these red-hawks was recently 
captured in a granary, to which, apparently, it must have 
gained access by means of the cat-hole in the door, and the 
object of its visit may be readily conjectured. The kestrel has 
been seen in the act of hawking cockchafers on the wing, and I 
have seen one apparently catching flies in the air ; but it takes 
most of its food from the ground, snatching it up without 
pausing for a moment in its flight. Any animal of sufficiently 
small size is borne away ; moles, young rats, weasels, small 
birds, lizards, frogs, and perhaps even snakes, all at times form 
part of its diet. It appears that it frequently hunts about on 
the ground for its food, for worms, grasshoppers, and the larvge 
of beetles have been found in the crops of individuals which 
have been opened ; and Canon Tristram mentions one that con- 
tained 178 wireworms, perhaps gathered from a newly ploughed 
field. It is not often seen feeding in this manner, but the 
nature of its food proves that it not unfrequently does so. One 
to my knowledge was killed with its feet covered with cow- 
dung, which had doubtless adhered to it during its search after 
beetles. 
Like all the birds of prey and many insectivorous species, 
the kestrel returns the indigestible portion of its food through 
the mouth in the form of pellets, or, as they are usually called, 
“ castings.” These castings indisputably prove the nature of 
the bird’s prey, and usually consist of the fur and bones of mice, 
together with the shining wing-cases of beetles. 
The kestrel is, as a rule, mercilessly shot and trapped by 
game-preservers, partly from the fact of its being confounded 
with the sparrow-hawk, from which it may be readily distin- 
guished by its red-brown colouring, pointed wings, and charac- 
teristic flight ; but chiefly because, under certain circumstances, 
it really does serious mischief to young game, and, though 
much less frequently, to tiny chickens in the poultry-yard. 
When there is a family of clamorous young hawks, in the pos- 
session of fine healthy appetites, on the ledge of rock or in the 
crow’s nest at the top of the Scotch fir, when beetles are scarce 
and mice wary, the keeper’s array of coops, each with its brood 
of fluffy little helpless pheasants, must appear a veritable god- 
send to the parent kestrels. Having once discovered such an 
easy prey, and ignorant of the heinousness of their crime, it is 
only natural that they should continue to carry them to their 
hungry nestlings, till the keeper’s gun puts an end to their 
VOL. III. T. s. — 12 Z Z 
