FALCONID.-E. 



335 



THE KITE. 



MiLvus ictInus, Savigny. 



This species— the Anglo-Saxon Cyta (Newton), and also known as 

 the Gled or Glead, in allusion to its gliding flight — may, from the 

 colour of its tail and upper plumage, conveniently be called the Red 

 Kite, when the necessity arises for distinguishing it from its con- 

 geners. Within the recollection of persons still living it was tolerably 

 common in many of the wooded districts of England and Wales, 

 but for many years it has not been known to breed in the south- 

 eastern counties ; one of the last nests known in Lincolnshire — a 

 former stronghold — was in 1870 ; and in the few spots still inhabited 

 in the Western Midlands, the Marches, and Wales, this handsome 

 bird will soon be exterminated by the collector of British specimens 

 unless the most stringent measures are taken. In Scotland it 

 survives in a few localities, though there the value of its tail-feathers 

 for salmon-flies adds to the risk which it elsewhere incurs from the 

 gamekeeper ; while, exceptionally, stragglers have reached the 

 Orkneys, and perhaps the Shetlands. The Kite is not, however, 



