lake a great many years ago; the soil, you
see, is composed of peat varying in thickness in different parts, and
below the peat is often found sand and pebbles, which looks as if it
was once the bottom of a vast lake ten miles or more long, and three
broad. The village of Kinnersly was evidently once an island, and you
can now see the moors extending all around it. Once, then, the whole
district was covered with water, but about 200 years ago it was
covered with wood.

[Illustration: KESTREL.]

"Oh! papa, did you see that?" said Jack. "A hawk pounced upon a small
bird and has taken him to that fir tree, where he is eating him." It
is a kestril; one of the commonest of the British hawks, and which
we may often see in this district; though I am afraid those
destructive animals called gamekeepers will in time succeed in
destroying every hawk in the neighbourhood. "Well, but, papa," said
Willy, "do they not do a great deal of harm to young partridges and
pheasants, and of course the gamekeeper will not stand that?" I dare
say; indeed I have no doubt that a kestril will occasionally seize
upon a young partridge, but it is also certain that mice form the
principal part of its food. Remains of mice, shrews, beetles, lizards,
have been found in the kestril's stomach, and I am sure it would be a
great pity to seek to exterminate this handsome and attractive bird.
"Is this the hawk that you very often see hovering steadily in the
air over one spot?" asked May. Yes, it is, and from this habit it has
got the name of windhover; the outspread tail is suspended and the
head always points in the direction of the wind. The sparrow-hawk I
occasionally see, and now and then the merlin, a beautiful little
fellow and of great courage; the sparrow-hawk is a much greater enemy
to young birds than the kestril, and ought not to be allowed to
increase where game or poultry are reared, for so bold are these birds
that they will not unfrequently skim over a poultry yard, seize a
young chicken and carry it off. Have you never heard the cry of terror
an old hen utters when a hawk is seen in the air near her little
brood?

Mr. Gould gives us the following anecdote of a sparrow-hawk as related
to him by a friend:--

"Three or four years since I was driving towards Dover, when suddenly
a sparrow-hawk, with a stoop like a falcon's, struck a lark close to
my horse's head. The lark fell as a grouse or a partridge will fall to
a falcon or tiercel, a