Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/201

 ENEATH the ancient beeches I came across the body of a kestrel, a male in all the beauty of its nuptial dress. For many weeks I had watched this bird, had heard its cheerful note when it made love to its mate, had seen it circling and wheeling round her, and had admired and wondered at its easy hovering flight when it beat the meadow for food. The nest of the pair was in a hollow timber near by, and probably the eggs were laid; but the keeper had also seen the birds, and now one, widowed, was left to bring up the family. Beneath the nesting tree lay pellets cast up by the birds, fur and small bones of mammals, shining elytra of beetles and other rejectamenta; but they contained no bones of gamebirds, nothing, indeed, to justify the murder. One russet wing was smashed, and there was a cruel shot rent in the neck; but the bright yellow cere, the blue-striped head, the broad banded, widespread tail, and the creamy throat and cheeks were unstained by blood. The yellow legs were drawn up, the claws clenched, the bill half open; fierce to the last, he had died in an attitude of defiance. Of what use had been my arguments that the bird was a farmer's friend, my warning that to slay it was breaking the law? To the keeper it was a hawk, and so must die.

The dead kestrel is but a single example of the daily, hourly destruction that wasteth the animals and plants: one tragedy out of countless thousands. In the broad parkland, where the bird lay, evidences of the ever-present struggle for very existence are ever before us. Here