32 
FALOONIDiE. 
HA PTORES. 
FALCON! DM, 
KESTREL. 
Falco tinncjnculus. 
PLATE X. FIG. II. III. 
I am inclined to believe that the true falcons very rarely 
make a nest for themselves. It is well known that the 
Kestrel most frequently takes possession of that of some 
other bird in which to rear its young ones. It breeds not 
uncommonly in most of our woody districts, laying its 
eggs in the nest of a crow or magpie. 
In those bare and wilder places to which it also fre¬ 
quently resorts, it either makes its own nest, or uses that 
of the raven or the jackdaw, upon the ledge of some rocky 
steep, or on the walls of some crumbling ruin. 
Mr. Macgillivray says, that in Scotland “twenty nests 
of this species might be pointed out in rocks for one in a 
tree,” and that a pair have bred in the castle rock 
of Edinburgh for many years. They breed annually on 
the top of an old tower in Oatlands Park, in the com¬ 
pany and on friendly terms with a colony of jackdaws. 
Mr. Gurney, in a notice in the “ Zoologist,” mentions a 
nest of the Kestrel which was placed in the hollow trunk 
of a pollard oak. Mr. Waterton had one summer no 
less than twenty-four nests of this species in his park 
at Walton, and comes to the conclusion that, “ allowing 
four young ones to the nest, there must have been bred 
here ninety-six windhover hawks last summer; add the 
parent birds, and we shall have in all one hundred and 
forty-four.” 
