KING HARRY— KITE 489 



interesting subject, for the only fossil referred to tlie neighbour- 

 hood of the Family is the Haley ornis ioliapicus of Sir R Owen 

 {Br. Foss. Mamm. and Birds, p. 554) from the Eocene of Sheppey — 

 the very specimen said to have been previously placed by Konig 

 {Icon. foss. sectiles, fig. 153) in the genus Larus (FossiL-BiRDS, p. 281). 



KING HAERY, a local name for the Goldfinch. 



KINGLET, see Goldcrest. 



KIRR-MEW, a local name for the common Tern, the first 

 syllable having reference to its cry. 



KITE,^ Anglo-Saxon Cyta, the Falco milvus of Linnaeus and 

 Milvus idinus of modern ornithologists, once perhaps the most 

 familiar Bird-of-Prey in Great Britain, and now one of the rarest. 

 Three or four hundred years ago foreigners were struck with its 

 abundance in the streets of London, and the evidence of two of 

 them, one being the eminent naturalist Belon, has been already 

 given (Extermination, p, 226, note 2).^ It was doubtless the scav- 

 enger in ordinary of that and other large towns (as a kindred species 

 now is in Eastern lands), except where its place was taken by the 

 Eaven ; for Sir Thomas Browne wrote {circa 1662) of the latter at 

 Norwich — "in good plentie about the citty which makes so few 

 Kites to be seen hereabout." Wolley has well remarked of the 

 modern Londoners that few " who see the paper toys hovering over 

 the parks in fine days of summer, have any idea that the bird from 

 which they derive their name used to float all day in hot weather 

 high over the heads of their ancestors." Even at the beginning of 

 the present century the 



" Kites that swim sublime 

 In still repeated circles, screaming loud," 



formed a feature of many a rural landscape in England, as they had 

 done in the days of Cowper. But an evil time soon came upon the 

 species. It must have been always hated by the henwife, but the 

 resources of civilization in the shape of the gun and the gin were 

 denied to her. They were, however, employed with fatal zeal by 

 the gamekeeper ; for the Kite, which had long afforded the suprem- 

 est sport to the falconer, was now left friendless,^ and in a very 



^ Glead or Gled, cognate with glide, is also another English name. 



^ Its abundance was almost simultaneously testified by Turner, who added 

 that it was so rapacious as to snatch meat from the hands of children in our 

 towns and cities. 



^ George, third Earl of Orford, died in 1791, and Col. Thornton, who with him 

 had been the latest follower of this highest branch of falconry, broke up liis hawk- 

 ing establishment not many years after {cf. Lubbock, Faun. Norf. ed. 2, pp. 227- 

 231). There is no evidence that the pursuit of the Kite was anywhere reserved to 

 kings or privileged persons, but the taking of it was quite beyond the powers of the 



