•288 Pictures of Bird Life 



His failure made me determined to get up somehow, 

 Avhatever happened, and I got him to g'i\ e me a back. Finally, 

 after a hard struggle, I reached the nest, somewhat to my own 

 surprise. Unfortunately it was empty ; but we soon found 

 more nests, and that afternoon I successfully tackled 

 nine pine-trees, taking altogether three clutches of Kites' 



1 shall not soon forget the pleasure experienced on looking 

 into my first Kites nest, and seeing the three great round eggs, 

 so richly spotted and marked. All the nests were lined 

 with horse-dung, and without exception contained a bit of 

 rag of some description and a piece of newspaper. One 

 such piece I still haye, containing an account of the Cretan 

 War, which was going on at tlie time. 



There are two species of Kites — the resident Common 

 Kite, '• jNIilano real " of tlie Spaniards, and " ^lilano negro," 

 the Black Kite, a migratory species. The eggs of these 

 two are indistinguishable, and in order to identify them it is 

 necessary to make sure of the birds. The flight of both 

 is magnificently easy and graceful, as they glide along, 

 steering themsehes by their long forked tail, which is in 

 the Black Kite less deeply cleft ; and the l)ird is somewhat 

 smaller and more dusky-looking, as seen from ]:)elow. 



On one nest, in a large cork-tree, the bird remained 

 while I was climbing up to it, and I did not know she 

 was there. On getting my head aboye it and looking in, I 

 Avas considerably astonished at seeino- tlie nest, as I tliouojit, 

 unfold a big pair of wings and fly away. IMy eyes, in fact. 



