80 BRITISH BIRDS. 
MILVUS ATER. 
BLACK KITE. 
(PuatE 5.) 
Accipiter milvus niger, Briss. Orn. i. p. 413 (1760). 
Accipiter korschun, Gmel. N. Comm. Petrop. xv. p. 444 (1771). 
Falco migrans, Bodd. Tabl. Pl. Eni. p. 28 (1783). 
Falco ater*, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p.262 (1788) ; et auctorum plurimorum— Temminck, 
(Sundevall), (Kaup), (Layard), (Jerdon), Naumann, &e. 
Milvus ater (Gmel.), Daud. Traité, ii. p. 149 (1800). 
Falco fusco-ater (Gmel.), Meyer, in Mey. u. Wolf's Taschenb. i. p. 27 (1810). 
Accipiter milvus, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-As. i. p. 356 (1826). 
Milvus niger, Bp. Comp. List B. Eur. § N. Amer. p. 4 (1838). 
Hydroictinia ater (Gmel.), Kaup, Classif. Saiug. w. ‘Og. p. 115 (1844). 
Milvus eetolius, Schl. Vog. Nederl. pl. 82 (1854). 
Milvus migrans (Bodd.), Strickl. Orn. Syn. p. 183 (1855). 
The Black Kite has no right whatever to be considered a British bird. 
It is included in the British list solely on the authority of a single example 
caught in a trap in the Red-Deer Park at Alnwick in May 1866 (‘ Ibis,’ 
1857, p. 253). This may have been a spring migrant which had acci- 
dentally overshot its mark ; or it may have escaped from an aviary. 
There are five forms of the Black Kite. One of these, M. egyptius, 
distinguished by having a yellow bill, is probably specifically distinct. It 
breeds in N.E. Africa, Palestine, Arabia, and Asia Minor, occasionally 
straying into Greece, and wintermg in South Africa. Of the other four 
forms, two (an eastern and a western) are northern races, and two (also 
an eastern and a western) are southern races. MM. ater breeds in suitable 
localities throughout Europe south of the Baltic, and eastwards in Asia 
Minor, Palestine, Persia, and Turkestan. On migration it has been known 
to stray as far north as Archangel. It passes through N.W. Africa on mi- 
gration, where a few remain to breed, and winters in Africa south of the Atlas 
Mountains. In Turkestan it meets and apparently interbreeds with M. 
melanotis, which extends eastwards through S. Siberia to China and Japan, 
* The Black Kite is best known as M. ater or M. niger; but the former name has not 
only been used by the greatest number of ornithologists, but is also the oldest of the two. 
Messrs. Newton and Dresser have, however, set a bad example in following Strickland in 
his adoption of Boddaert’s name; and Sharpe has made bad worse by adopting a name 
which is practically unknown. There can be no doubt that Gerini was probably the first 
ornithologist after Linnzeus who clearly discriminated between this species and the 
Common Kite ; and under cover of the mischievous law of priority it is not improbable 
that some future ornithologist with more zeal than discretion will attempt to call the 
Black Kite F. milano, founded upon his figure (i. pl. xxxviii.). 
nowt Ct 
