THE BIRDS OF DEVONSHIRE. 77 



in Devonshire) regularly bred in a large woodland 

 called King's Wood, not far from Holne Chase on 

 Dartmoor" (Zool. 1870. p. 1980). In his annual 

 summary, Mr. Rodd wrote more decidedly: "No 

 hawk was better known in the large woodland 

 districts of the Central part of Devon, when I was 

 a boy at Buckfastleigh, than the 'Fork-tailed Kit,' 

 as it was commonly called '' (Birds of Cornwall, p. 

 255). Mr. Rodd appears to have been born in 

 1810, so that his experience of the Kite in Devon 

 would refer to years between 1820 and 1830. The 

 Ootheca Wolleyana mentions an egg of the Kite 

 from Devon, and in 1872 the Hon. Lord Lilford 

 informed Mr. Harting that the Kite Joi-mei'ly bred in 

 North Devon. Writing in 1838, Bellamy stated 

 that the Kite might be considered " almost confined 

 to Dartmoor " (Nat. Hist, of Devon, p. 300). also, 

 that, ' ' in former years the Kite was a common bird 

 in this country, but at the present time it is 

 particularly scarce" (Ibid. p. 305). We come next 

 to enumerate specimens of the Kite killed in Devon, 

 the properly authenticated instances are very few 

 indeed. 



Writing from the Barnstaple district on May 

 5th 1861, the Rev. M. A. Mathew records the 

 capture, a few days earlier, of a fine adult Kite, 

 taken in a trap at Kentisbury (Zool. 1861. p. 754-1). 

 On the 13th of October in the following year a 

 male specimen was shot on the banks of the Avon 

 near Kingsbridge (Zool. 1863. p, 8325), and another 



