74 BRITISH BIRDS. 
MILVUS REGALIS. 
COMMON KITE. 
(PLateE 5.) 
Accipiter milvus regalis, Briss. Orn. i. p. 414, pl. 38 (1760). 
Faleo milvus, Zinn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 126 (1766). 
Milvus castaneus, Daud. Traité, ii. p. 148 (1800). 
Milvus ictinus*, Sav. Syst. Ois. d Egypte, p. 28 (1810). 
Milvus regalis (Briss.), Viel. Faun, Frang. p. 14 (1821). 
Accipiter regalis (Briss.), Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-As. i. p. 358 (1826); et auctorum 
plurimorum—(Macgillivray), (Gray), (Bonaparte), (Schlegel), (Strickland), 
(Sundevall), (Degland et Gerbe), (Gould), (Heuglin), (Salvadori), (Gray), &e. 
Milvus vulgaris, Flem. Brit. An. p. 51 (1828). 
A hundred years ago the Kite was one of the commonest birds of prey 
to be seen in Great Britain, but now it has become almost as rare as the 
Osprey or the Goshawk. All the old writers who have treated of the natural 
history of our islands have made reference to the wide distribution 
and abundance of the Kite. Even in busy London laws were once in 
existence for its protection, the birds being so numerous there as to attract 
the attention of foreigners, just as in our day the Doves, the Vultures, 
and the Storks in Eastern cities arrest our own. 
At the present day the Kite must be looked upon only as an accidental 
visitor to England. In the southern counties there is no place now where 
it regularly breeds. There were nests in the large woods of Lincolnshire 
up to 1857; but since so much timber has been felled, the Kites have 
deserted that locality. A few pairs still remain in the secluded districts of 
Wales. When the first edition of Yarrell’s ‘ British Birds’ was published, 
the Kite still bred at Aleonbury Hill, in Huntingdonshire, and the bird was 
said to become more numerous in the northern counties, where, however, 
no trace of it can now be found. Waterton spoke of seeing the Kite at 
his seat in Yorkshire; and, upon the authority of Dr. Heysham, it used to 
breed in the woods of the Lake district. At the present day it is seen but 
rarely in England. Some six years ago a specimen was recorded, said to be 
for the first time, in the Isle of Wight (Zool. 1876, p. 4760) ; and Mr. Gurney 
writes that he sometimes sees this bird in Norfolk, passing southwards in 
the autumn, in company with Buzzards. In Scotland it was formerly a 
very common bird, but is now rarely seen, and only breeds in one or 
* Although the Kite has been almost universally known as JZ. regalis, and among con- 
tinental ornithologists is known by no other name, Messrs. Newton, Sharpe, and Dresser 
have all three allowed themselves to be blinded by the rules of the British Association, 
and have unearthed a new name for this bird, which has heen pretty generally adopted 
by modern English writers on birds. 
