“Despite its smallness it is a bold bandit. Little birds are terror-stricken at the mere sound of the merlin’s wings in their neighborhood. Even the partridge is not safe from its attacks. It begins by separating one of the birds from the rest of the covey, and then, circling about above it in a spiral, which grows smaller and smaller, it descends until it can reach its victim with its claws and knocks it down with a blow on the breast. “Such are the principal diurnal birds of prey that we have to make war upon without mercy. Up and after these savage bloodsuckers, destroyers of game, ravagers of poultry-yards and pigeon-cotes! Take your gun, vigilant farmer, watch for the falcon and the goshawk, and let fire at those brigands! Destroy their nests, break their eggs, and wring the necks of their young, if you wish to save your chickens, ducks, and pigeons.” CHAPTER XIX KESTRELS, KITES AND BUZZARDS “The kestrel belongs to the falcon family, as may be seen from the small, sharp tooth on each side of the tip of the beak. It is rather a handsome bird, about the size of a pigeon, red in color, with black spots, and a white tip to the tail. The beak is blue and the legs are yellow. The kestrel is the most widely scattered bird of prey and the one most often seen near human habitations. Its favorite haunts are old castles, lofty towers, and belfries. One often sees it flying with untiring wing around these buildings, uttering the while a piercing cry, plee, plee, plee! pree, pree, pree! which it sends forth to frighten the sparrows snuggling in holes in the wall, so that it may seize them when they fly out. It carefully plucks the little captured birds before eating them; but it has another kind of prey which gives it less trouble, and that is the mouse, which it enters open barns in order to catch, also the fat and savory field-mouse, which it spies from on high when holding itself motionless in the air in one position with tail and wings gracefully extended. What will it do with its catch? Will it skin the creature for the sake of cleanliness, as it plucks the sparrow? No, the common mouse and the field-mouse are dainty morsels of which the kestrel would be loath to lose a single drop of blood. The rodent is swallowed just as it is, whole if small, piecemeal if large. After digestion the skin and bones are thrown up through the beak in the form of little balls, just as in the case of the owl. “The kestrel nests in old towers, abandoned ruins, hollow rocks. Its nest, made of twigs and roots, holds four or five rust-colored eggs marbled with brown. “We will pass now to the kite, which is different from all other birds of prey, with its broad and forked tail, its very long wings, its rather slender claws, and its very small beak, a beak not at all in keeping with the bird’s size, which exceeds that of the falcon. This beak makes the bird cowardly to excess, frightened by the slightest danger, put to flight by a mere crow.