30 THE BIRDS OF OXFOEDSHIEE. 



living who can remember when the Kite was a common bird 

 in various parts of the comity. An old keeper named Cook, 

 living- at Kingham, told me in 1887, when he was over eighty, 

 that when he was a young man the Kite was abundant about 

 Kingham and Sarsden, and you could see several in the air at 

 once over Bruern and Churchill-Heath woods. The Rev. 

 A. Matthews writes to me — ^Previous to 1830 Kites bred 

 commonly in the large woods of Oxfordshire : the last nest of 

 which I heard was about that year. I have myself seen at 

 the same minute three Kites flying over the trees in Beckley 

 Wood.' Mr. E. W. Harcourt can recollect when the Kite 

 inhabited Tar Wood, near Stanton Harcourt, and Mr. G. 

 Arnatt tells me he can well remember it breeding annually 

 there fifty years ago. In the History of Banhury list (1840) 

 the Kite is entered as ' Rare, much more common a few years 

 ago ; ' and of that neighbourhood Mr. T. Beesley tells me 

 that, when he was a boy, he frequently heard his companions 

 talking of Kites they had seen. Instances of this kind might 

 easily be multiplied. In the extreme south of the comity it 

 apparently became rare at an earlier date, since Dr. Lamb 

 wrote of the neighbouring part of Berkshire ' between thirty 

 and forty years ago [i.e. between 1774 and 1784], very 

 frequent about Reading, now very rare, having seen one only, 

 in May, 1795, near Reading, these twenty-seven years' 

 [Oniithologia Bercheria). It must be remembered, however, 

 that the Kite seems to have seldom wandered far from 

 the shelter of the woods, and might easily have haunted the 

 beech woods on the Chilterns until a later date than is here 

 indicated. 



Some year between 1830 and 1840 probably saw the 

 last of the Kite as a resident in Oxfordshire, and but few 

 more years elapsed before it had ceased to appear even as a 

 straggler to the county. The late Mr. A. E. Knox mentions, 

 in 1 850, liaAang seen it ' many years ago ' in Oxfordshire, 

 doubtless while he was in residence at the University [Or- 



