MILVIN^. 103 



ofFal thrown overboard, or, occasionally, from what is thrown out in • 

 the streets and roads. Near large rivers or lakes it manages to pick 

 off the surface of the water small fishes, or a prawn occasionally ; 

 but its chief food, away from towns and cantonments, is frogs, 

 and crabs, which abound in all rice fields, and the remains 

 of which last, picked clean, may be found so abundantly along tlie 

 little bunds that divide the fields from each other. It will also eat 

 water insects, mice, and shrews, and young or sickly birds ; and 

 many a wounded snipe I have seen carried off by the Brahminy 

 Kite. In wooded countries I have seen it questing oA^er the woods, 

 and catching insects, especially large Cicada^, and I have also seen 

 it whip a locust off standing grain. Now and then it gives hot chase 

 to a crow, or even to a common kite, and forces them to give up 

 some coveted piece of garbage or dead fish; when thus employed, 

 it exhibits considerable speed and great energy. It is much on the 

 wing, soaring lazily about cantonments, or up and down rivers; but 

 after a time seats itself on some palm or other tree, on the mast 

 of a ship, and even on the ground. Near cities it is very tame 

 and fearless, and I have often seen one catching fish thrown up to it 

 by some pious Hindoo. It is said sometimes to carry off young 

 chickens and pigeons, but I have not myself witnessed this. If 

 the food it has seized be small, it devours it as it flies; but if large, 

 it generally sits down on the ground, or the bund of a paddy field, 

 or carries it off to a lofty tree. 



The Brahminy Kite breeds on trees, in February and March, 

 making a not very large nest of sticks, sometimes lined with mud, 

 and laying generally only two eggs, w^hich are sometimes dirty 

 white, at other times white, with a few rusty brown spots. In the 

 Carnatic it usually selects a palm tree to build in. Layard says 

 that it makes several false nests, and that, whilst the female is incu- 

 bating, the male generally occupies one of the nests first made. 

 It has a pecuHar, rather wild, squeal ; but it is not so noisy a bird 

 as its more plebeian relation, the pariah-kite. It is, as is well known, 

 sacred to Vishnu ; hence the name of Brahminy Kite given it by 

 Europeans in India. The Mussulman name Rumuharik, or lucky 

 face, arises from an idea that when two armies are about to engage. 



