56 
FALCONIM. 
ting intently on them. The eggs were of large size, and as vivid 
in colouring as those of wild individuals. This bird had not the 
company of any other kestrel during its captivity. Being pur- 
chased in the market, its age is not known. ^ 
Although the kestrel is the most common of the Falconida in 
Ireland, I have not met with it so abundantly anywhere in this 
island, as it is said by Sir William Jardine and Mr. Waterton to 
be in Scotland and England. The former author observes : — 
“ We know several glens where, within a quarter of a mile, there 
may in April and May be found from ten to twelve eyries ; and, 
in one situation, eight or nine can be perceived at once."t Mr. 
Waterton remarks: — “Last summer [1835] I visited twenty- 
four nests in my park, all with the wind-hover's eggs in 
them/'J 
In an extent of glen such as that noticed, we should not, in the 
north of Ireland, find more than one or two nests. The reason of 
the species being less numerous in this island than in Great 
Britain, may perhaps in some degree be accounted for, by the 
circumstance, that there are comparatively few of the smaller 
Mammalia on which the kestrel chiefly preys. Of the Arvicolce, 
or short-tailed mice, for instance, of which four species are found 
in Great Britain, none have yet been detected in Ireland ; and of 
the Sorices, or shrew-mice, we have as yet in Ireland met with 
but two, (or one-half of the British species,) one only of which 
is common. 
Willoughby says of the kestrel : — “ In the stomach we found 
beetles and fur of mice;" Mr. Waterton also writes to the same 
effect, adding that it lives “ almost entirely on mice." Mr. Hep- 
burn, an attentive observer and a contributor of much interesting 
matter to Macgillivray's History of British Birds, remarks, that 
“ birds constitute no part of its food," vol. iii. p. 335. These 
gentlemen are doubtless correct with regard to the food of the 
kestrel, in the districts from which they have written ; — but their 
* Mr. Robert Warren, junr. f Brit. Birds, vol. i. p. 140. 
t Essays Nat. Hist. vol. i. p. 261. 
