390 



FAIXUX AXU EAGLE c;R(JUP 



a pair each left their respective nests. Previous to this interesting 

 event the last record of the breeding of the species in Great Britain 

 appears to have been near Shrewsbury in 1895 ; and for several years 

 previous to this kites nested locally in various Welsh localities. If we 

 accept the Shrewsbury case, which may have been within the Princi- 

 pality, the last-recorded English kite's nest was in Lincolnshire in 

 1870. In Worcestershire the species bred so late as 1850, and in 



Huntingdonshire till 1844 ; 

 while in 1825 it still nested 

 commonly in man\' parts of 

 England. Across the 

 border kites are recorded 

 to have bred in Perthshire 

 so recently as 1871, but 

 the statement that a pair 

 of young kites was taken 

 in Glen Lyon, Argyllshire, 

 in 1876^ is incorrect, the 

 real date being ten years 

 earlier. To Ireland the 

 kite never appears to have 

 been more than a casual 

 visitor, and no Irish speci- 

 men is in existence. This 

 is very strange, considering 

 how numerous was the 

 species in the south of 

 England in the fifteenth 

 century. The recent breed- 

 ing of the species in South 

 Kin;. Wales has been already 



mentioned ; and a number 

 were reported from Gloucestershire in the same }'ear, where they were 

 formerly very common. It is stated, indeed, that some fifty years ago 

 no less than seventeen were killed in that county at a single .shot, 

 while feasting on the carcase of a sheep. With the above exceptions, 

 the kite throughout Great Britain is apparently only a rare straggler 

 at the present day, its practical extermination being largely due 

 to relentless persecution on the part of the gamekeeper. The 

 British Museum possesses seven kites' eggs from Sutherlandshire, two 



' llarting. llaudhook of Ihitish /hriL, p. I 7. 



