THE KESTREL, OR WIND-MOVER. 
conspicuous, lie pounced upon it while on the wing. But 
neither did this hawk appear to mind the smaller birds, nor 
did they, as if aware of their security, pay the least attention 
to him.” 
In opposition to this, writes Dr. Burkitt : — “ I recollect one 
evening, in the summer of 1835, being struck by the appear- 
ance of a sparrow, which alighted on a myrtle within two yards 
of me, and hopped backwards and forwards within a space of 
I eight or ten inches, evidently in a state of extreme terror. 
For the few moments that it continued this, my attention was 
! exclusively attracted by its most peculiar motion ; but almost at 
the same instant I felt as though something brushed my head 
(my hat being off at the time), and before I could turn to 
ascertain the cause a female kestrel dashed at the sparrow, 
| and bore it off.” William Thompson, the naturalist, furnishes 
as positive an instance as the above of the kestrel’s bird-pur - 
! suing habits. “ In November, 1845, as Mr. ITigginson was 
riding in a coach from Belfast to Antrim, a skylark, pursued 
by a kestrel, flew into the coach (the window being open), 
when near Templepatrick, and alighted at his back. Feeling 
confident that it had taken refuge from some bird of prey, he 
gently laid hold of and carried the lark for some distance, until 
certain that it would be beyond the reach of its pursuer, when 
it was given liberty. A friend of Mr. Higginson’s, travelling 
outside the coach, observed the hawk to sweep close past the 
{ coach, but did not perceive the lark.” 
Bishop Stanley, in his “ History of Birds,” says the kestrel 
will not only kill small buds but others nearly as large as 
itself, as the following facts will prove. “ One of them was 
observed to seize a young blackbird just able to fly, which it 
was in the act of carrying off in its talons. The old blackbird 
gave chase, with loud cries and apparent determination to 
rescue her young one, when the kestrel, having allowed her 
to approach unmolested, in an instant dropped the young bird, 
and as instantaneously caught up the screaming parent, and 
carried her clear away.” 
The Rev. J. Gr. Wood (who by the bye makes a point of the 
kestrel’s extreme utility to the farmer, and execrates the idea 
of its being confounded with the ravenous sparrow-hawk) tells 
a curious story of a deformed kestrel. 
This bird, whose character and habits so closely resemble 
those of the legendary fairy changelings, that if there were 
such things as hawk fairies, the accipitrine poets and ro- 
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