326 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



The adult male has dark greyish slate upper parts, with a 

 whitish spot on the nape ; the flight feathers and tail are dark 

 brown barred with grey. The bill is bluish horn, the cere and 

 legs yellow, the claws black, and the irides orange. The under 

 parts differ markedly from those of the female, for in the male 

 they are more or less rufous barred with reddish brown, but in 

 the female white with brown, or more generally dark grey bars. 

 The female is larger and browner on the back. The young 

 bird is dark brown above, with rufous margins to the feathers, 

 and the white under parts are more streaked than barred with 

 brown. In both sexes there is considerable variation in size. 

 Male : Length, 13 ins. Wing, 7-9 ins. Tarsus, 2-i ins. Female : 

 Length, 15 ins. Wing, 9-2 ins. Tarsus, 2*4 ins. 



Kite. MilviLs 7nilvtis (Linn.). 



The Kite (Plate 141) is found in most parts of Europe, and in 

 north Africa and western Asia. In the north of its range it is 

 migratory, but elsewhere, including Britain, a sedentary species : 

 an occasional straggler, usually immature, reaches our shores, 

 but these visits are very irregular. The story of the Kite as a 

 British resident is, though lamentable, a triumph for the pre- 

 sent generation of ornithologists — or for a few of them. In the 

 eighteenth century the bird was common in all parts, a wood- 

 land species constantly visiting the towns and villages, though 

 apparently never resident in Ireland, where the few instances 

 of its occurrence rest on slender evidence. In the nineteenth 

 century farmers and game-preservers waged war against the 

 Kite, with the result that by the middle of the century it had 

 vanished from most of its ancient haunts, though a few nested 

 in England and Scotland in the seventies. Twenty years later 

 some twenty pairs lingered in central Wales, and then the 

 egg-collector, fearing that his collection might not contain 

 " British-taken " eggs, raided its sanctuary. In 1903 a few real 



