o 



6 The Field Naturalist's Quarterly May 



putride dont on n'osait plus approcher a disparu, est rentree 

 au courant pur et salubre de la vie universelle." 



I doubt if there are any of the hawk tribe to be found in 

 the City now, amidst its turmoil and its sky-sign advertise- 

 ments, though in 1848 Stanley mentions them as fairly 

 frequent ; but I was very pleased last year to watch five 

 hawks sailing round the tower of Cologne Cathedral and 

 settling on its pinnacles, in apparent harmony with the 

 jackdaws that build there. 



The kites of those days seem to have been very well be- 

 haved, at times taking food from the hands of children. At 

 the same time 3'our kite when bent on building a nest was 

 an arrant thief, and would steal anything from a leather 

 strap to a frill, as Gould says, "When the species was 

 plentiful it must have kept the housewife on the alert for 

 her frills and her furbelows," where, if I remember right, he is 

 alluding to a remark of Autolycus (" Winter's Tale," ii. 3) — 



"My traffick is in sheets, 

 When the kite builds look to lesser linen." 



The only actual instance I know of stealing lighter washing 

 is one of a Blackbird, but Jackdaws and Magpies collect 

 much varied matter at times. 



The Kite being a biggish bird, and withal a bit mischiev- 

 ous, has been much persecuted, so that from being one of 

 our commonest birds, Seebohm now speaks of him as " an 

 accidental visitor." I know a gamekeeper in Cambridge 

 who took a kite's nest some twenty years ago, and declares 

 that it is the last instance of kites breeding in England. I 

 doubt it, but I have inquired very widely from Cornwall to 

 Cornhill-on-Tweed, and wherever I have heard of the kite 

 breeding, the date has been somewhat remote. 



To return to Kites in Shakspear, there is a cruel look in 

 its eye, a general sense of merciless beauty, and so he uses 

 it often in a bad sense — " Macbeth," iv. 3, " O Hell-kite"; 

 "Henry V.," ii. i, "Fetch me the lazar-kite " — for he 

 noticed that, like the crow, it will not attack big living 

 animals, but waits until they are carrion ("Julius Caesar," 



V. I)— 



" And kites and crows 

 Fly o'er our head, and downward look on us 

 As we were sickly prey.'' 



