THE KITE 



{MILVUS REGALIS) 



fTlO realise the amount of persecution that 

 raptorial birds have suffered in the British 

 Islands, we have only to recall the days when the 

 present species was spoken of by old writers on 

 Natural History as one of the most abundant and 

 widely distributed of our indigenous birds. Old 

 records inform us that four or five hundred years 

 ago the Kite literally swarmed in London, and 

 that the bird was actually protected by law within 

 the precincts of the City ! Indeed, the Kite was 

 formerly held in esteem for its good offices as a 

 scavenger. We have Belon's testimony that he 

 found the Kite scarcely less numerous in London 

 than in Cairo, and that it cleared the streets and 

 the river of garbage and refuse. Further, the 

 many allusions, both poetical and otherwise, to the 

 Kite in our literature eloquently speaks to the 

 bird's former abundance. Even less than a hundred 



