COMMON KITE. 75 
two favourite localities in the counties of Inverness, Perth, and Aberdeen. 
It formerly bred in the west of Scotland, in Stirlingshire, Ayrshire, and 
the Isle of Arran, but now seems completely exterminated from these 
districts. Mr. Booth, in his ‘Rough Notes, mentions that the Kite is 
still found in various districts ; and in most of the glens in which he col- 
lected eggs and birds, some six years ago, the birds were still present, 
although a few pairs seemed to have left the district. It does not seem to 
occur in any part of the Outer Hebrides; but, on the authority of Elwes, 
it is still seen in the island of Islay; and Dixon, when in Skye, in the 
summer of 1881, saw the remains of this bird nailed to the wall of a shed 
which served as a gamekeeper’s museum. In the Orkneys and Shetlands 
the Kite appears still more rarely, Saxby having only on four occasions 
seen birds that may possibly be referred to this species. In Ireland it is 
only known as a very rare straggler. 
The Kite does not occur in Iceland or Greenland. It is a bird exclu- 
sively confined to the Western Palearctic Region, and may be said to 
breed in most parts of Europe, to be resident in the central and southern 
portions, and migratory in the north. In Sweden it is said to breed as 
far north as lat. 61°; but it is not known with certainty to inhabit Finland, 
whilst in Russia it breeds as far north as Archangel. These northern 
birds migrate southwards in winter; and at that season the Kite is a 
common bird in North-western Africa, m Algeria, the Dayats of the 
Sahara, and among the rocks of the Atlas, where a few birds also remain 
to breed. Its presence in Egypt, or in North-eastern Africa, is very 
doubtful; and Captain Shelley observes that he knows of no instance of 
its capture in the former country, where its place is taken by an allied 
bird, Milvus egyptius. It occurs, however, on passage in Asia Minor, and 
winters commonly in Palestine. The western range of the Kite appears 
to be Madeira and the Canaries, where it is said to be a resident; and 
Dr. Dohrn also met with it in the Cape-Verds. Its eastern limit is 
somewhat difficult to trace. According to Eversmann it occasionally 
occurs about the Southern Volga; and Severtzow several times noticed it 
in the Government of Veronsk ; whilst Pallas says it winters on the Lower 
Volga. As Sundevall, however, declares that this is a mistake, and as 
Bogdanow never observed it in the Volga region, and says that it becomes 
scarce in the province of Kieff, its eastern range is probably the basin of 
the Don. In North-east Russia, Sabaniieff, in his ‘ Avifauna of the Ural,’ 
States positively that he has seen several Red Kites, amongst hundreds 
of Milvus ater, flying towards some dead animals in the Kaslinsky Ural; 
so that it would appear that the bird gradually retires westward as it 
approaches the southern limit of its eastern range. 
The Kite may be easily distinguished upon the wing by its deeply-forked 
tail and the peculiar nature of its flight. For hours this bird will keep 
