180 BRITAIN'S BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS. 



The earlier decrease of the Kite, however, was due to 

 the relentless war waged with gun and gin by gamekeepers. 

 In Scotland the value of some of the feathers for making 

 salmon-flies was an added incentive to slaughter ! The 

 Kite''s damage to game cannot have been serious enough 

 to warrant such persistent persecution. It will take a 

 weakly or young bird either on the moor or in the poultiy- 

 yard, but it is said to turn tail before the parent hen ! 

 Birds are not caught in the air, but only on the groiuid. 

 They are also eaten there, for the Kite is weak as well as 

 cowardly, and cannot carry any great weight in its talons. 

 The greater part of the food, moreover, is carrion, and in 

 cities offal and garbage of all sorts are taken. In London 

 in the old days, as in other cities at the present, the Kites 

 thus inhabiting the haunts of man, and doing him service 

 as scavengers, showed great indifference to his presence, in 

 strong contrast to their natural cowardice. Various instances 

 of their acquired boldness are on record. It is even said 

 that Kites would snatch meat from the hands of children 

 in the streets. 



Cowards, preying on the weak, carrion-eaters, acting as 

 scavengers — there seems little of merit about them. But 

 see them on the wing, and it is another matter ! There 

 they exhibit only skill and grace and beauty, and we at 

 once forget the rest, and deplore the bird's extinction in 

 its ancient haunts. As Buffbn said, ' We cannot but admire 

 the manner in which the flight of the Kite is performed ; 

 his long and narrow wings seem motionless ; it is his tail 

 that seems to direct all his evolutions, and he moves it 

 continually ; he rises without effort, comes down as if he 

 were sliding along an inclined plane ; he seems rather to 

 swim than to fly ; he darts forward, slackens his speed, stops, 

 and remains suspended or fixed in the same place for whole 

 hours without exhibiting the smallest motion of his wings.' 



