490 KITE 



few years it seems to have been exterminated throughout the 

 greater part of England, certain woods in Huntingdonshire and 

 Lincolnshii-e and in the Western Midlands, as well as Wales, 

 excepted.^ In these last a small remnant still exists ; but 

 the well-wishers of this beautiful species are naturally chary of 

 giving information that might lead to its further persecution. In 

 Scotland there is no reason to suppose that its numbers suffered 

 much diminution until about 1835 or even later, when the system- 

 atic destruction of " vermin " on so many moors was begun. In 

 that kingdom, however, it is now as much restricted to certain dis- 

 tricts as in England or Wales, and those districts it would be 

 equally inexpedient to indicate. 



The Kite is, according to its sex, from 2.5 to 27 inches in length, 

 about one half of which is made up by its deeply-forked tail, capable 

 of great expansion, and therefore a powerful rudder, enabling the 

 bird while soaring on its wide wings, more than 5 feet in extent, to 

 direct its circling course with scarcely a movement that is apparent 

 to the spectator below. Its general colour is pale reddish-brown or 

 cinnamon, the head being greyish-white, but almost each feather 

 has the shaft dark. The tail-feathers are broad, of a light red, 

 barred with deep brown, and furnish the salmon-fisher with one of 

 the choicest materials of his " flies." The nest, nearly always l)uilt 

 in the crotch of a large tree, is formed of sticks intermixed with 

 many strange substances collected as chance may offer, but among 

 them rags - seem always to have a place. The eggs, three or four 

 in number, are of a dull white, spotted and blotched with several 

 shades of brown, and often lilac. It is especially mentioned by old 



ordinary trained Falcons, and in older days practically became limited to those of 

 the sovereign. Hence the Kite had attached to it, especially in France, the epithet 

 of "royal," which has still survived in the specific appellation of regalis applied 

 to it by many ornithologists. The scandalous work of Sir Antony Weldou 

 {Court and Character of King James, p. 104) bears witness to the excellence of 

 the Kite as a quarry in an amusing story of the "British Solomon," whose 

 Master-Falconer, Sir Thomas Monson, being determined to outdo the jierformance 

 of the French king's falconer, who, when sent to England to shew sport, ' ' could 

 not kill one Kite, ours being more magnanimous than the French Kite," at last 

 succeeded after an outlay of £1000, in getting a cast of Hawks that took nine 

 Kites running — "never missed one." On the strength of this, James was 

 induced to witness a flight at Royston, " but the Kite went to such a mountee as 

 all the field lost sight of Kite and Hawke and all, and neither Kite nor Hawke 

 were either seen or heard of to this present." 



■^ One most fatal way of destroying Kites is described in the curious book pub- 

 lished in 1814 by Col. George Hanger addressed To all Sportsmen and particu- 

 larly to Farmers and Gamekeepers (p. 80). 



- Thus justifying the advice of Autolycus ( Winter's Tale, act iv. sc. 3) — 

 "When the Kite builds, look to lesser linen" — very necessary no doubt to the 

 laundresses of former days when the bird commonly frequented their drying; 

 grounds. 



