348 Pictures of Bird Life 



to the last year's nest of a Kite, near to which was a fresh 

 nest in a beech-tree. This nest, however, liad palpal^ly 

 been chnibed to. and we did not tronble to ascend. I^eaning 

 af>ainst the beech was a felled sprnce-fir. on which boot- 

 marks coidd ])lainly be seen all the way up. Subsequent 

 events showed that tliis suspicion was only too true, and 

 we were able eventually to open the eyes of the owner 

 to what had been going on in his forest, probably for years, 

 without his knowledge or permission. His foresters had 

 been tempted to take the eggs of the rarer birds, breeding 

 in the forest under their charge, and sell them to a dealer 

 in Copenhagen. 



I had hoped to have been able to obtain some Kites' 

 eggs to help restock the hills of A\"ales. where the last 

 pair of Kites in Kngland are now lingering. The idea was 

 to put a clutch of fresh Kite's eggs in a Buzzard's nest. 

 as this bird is still fairly plentiful in AVales, and their eggs 

 and habits are very similar. I was quite unprepared to 

 find that the Kites in this remote Danisli forest were in 

 nuich the same ])light as the AW-lsli Kites, and from the 

 same cause. The greed of egg-collectors and dealers has 

 nuich to answer for in exterminating rare birds. For when 

 once a bird bemiis to i>et scarce and its eo'^s to be in 

 demand, the systematic r()l)])ery of tiiem year after year 

 for the dealers soon ends in extermination, as it gives tliem 

 no chance of recoverinof. 



Far more important than the Kites nest in an orni- 

 thological sense was the nest of a Black Stork. This was 



