THE KESTREL
Falco tinnunculus
The male has the upper plumage of head, back, and wings red-brown, spotted and barred with black; under-parts buff with black spots on flanks, and which on breast are smaller and closer together, making long lines. Rump and tail blue-grey, barred with black, one broad bar at end of tail tipped with pure white, base of bill and legs yellow, eyes brown. The female is without the blue-grey, and is more evenly brown all over, with spots and bars on the tail.
Length, 13·5 inches.
THIS is the commonest Hawk, and nests in nearly all the ruins of temples and old buildings up and down the land, and, as already stated, the young are often to be heard when they cannot be seen, calling with their incessant squeaky voice for their devoted parents. The parents are to be seen searching for food, hovering over the fields in the same way that they do at home, for this bird is the familiar Windhover (see Plate II.). The quantity of mice that it consumes is enormous, and of lizards, beetles, and particularly locusts, it also takes toll. So that though it does not do the useful work that the Kites are doing day by day, it still clears the land of what would otherwise be grave scourges.
The Kestrel is one of the birds of which large quantities of mummies have been found, and it was clearly treated with quite sacred rites, lending colour to the views of some that this is the original of the Hawk so frequently pictured and sculptured. This question is one, however, that as doctors disagree upon, it is not for a layman to venture judgment; but several of the best preserved specimens of wall-paintings at Deir-el-Bahari in their drawing suggest much more the shape of a long-legged Sparrow Hawk than the compact Kestrel. The colouring of these pictures is so different, sometimes one part of a bird will be in red, in others it will be green. We are told, however, that this is all right and they both are right; this is something of a mystery and passes my own comprehension. The view is certainly possible that these ancient artists never thought any future race of mankind would come worrying round to know what particular specific kind of bird was meant, they alone desiring to give a rendering of a typical Hawk.
Honestly admiring the fine work of these old artists, I yet retain my own liberty to point out what is wrong, and the accompanying illustrations show a very glaring error which is repeated over and over again, a thousand times, throughout the temples and tombs of the country. Fig. 3 shows the two wings of a painted hawk at Karnak; the right wing shows the outside, the left the inside of the wing. In the right wing the feathers are shown with their front edge lapping over the hind edge of the feather next in front. This gives a certain strength to the whole surface of the wing-area needed for flight, and if that be an accurate representation of the outside of a Hawk’s wing in nature, and it is, then it follows that the inside surface would show the reverse; that is to say, the free edge of each feather would show over-lapping the feather next behind it, as shown in figures Nos. 4 and 5. But Fig. 3 shows how the ancients thought birds should have their feathers placed, back and front, both identical. In all humility, I have once or twice pointed this out to devout Egyptologists, but they pass it over. “A mere convention,” they say; “they always render wings so; worship, worship!”
