THE KITE 



" Kites that swim sublime 

 In still repeated circle, screaming loud." 



THE kite furnishes a good example of what 

 political economists call " place value." A 

 kite nestling found in England will sell for 

 £2$, while in India the bird will not fetch 

 even the price of the biblical sparrow. It was not ever 

 thus. Time was when the kite was as common in the 

 United Kingdom as it now is in India. Kites of a 

 species {Milvus ictinus) nearly allied to the Indian bird 

 used to exist in London in their thousands in the 

 " good old days " when the conservancy arrangements 

 were such that the streets offered plenty of food for 

 carrion-feeders. 



As civilization and sanitation advanced, the kites 

 found that refuse, which is their ordinary food, was 

 growing beautifully less, hence they had to resort 

 largely to the farmyard and the game-preserve to sup- 

 plement their more normal diet — a change of habit not 

 welcomed by farmers and gamekeepers, who then began 

 to shoot at sight every kite that came within range. 

 Thus the species grew scarce. And when once this 

 happens in England the end of that species is not 



far off. 



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