KING HARRY—KITE 489 
interesting subject, for the only fossil referred to the neighbour- 
hood of the Family is the Halcyornis toliapicus of Sir R. Owen 
(Br. Foss. Mamm. and Birds, p. 554) from the Eocene of Sheppey— 
the very specimen said to have been previously placed by Konig 
(Icon. foss. sectiles, fig. 153) in the genus Larus (FOSSIL-BIRDS, p. 281). 
KING HARRY, a local name for the GOLDFINCH. 
KINGLET, see GOLDCREST. 
KIRR-MEW, a local name for the common TERN, the first 
syllable having reference to its cry. 
KITE,! Anglo-Saxon Cyta, the Falco milvus of Linneus and 
Milvus ictinus of modern ornithologists, once perhaps the most 
familiar Bird-of-Prey in Great Britain, and now one of the rarest. 
Three or four hundred years ago foreigners were struck with its 
abundance in the streets of London, and the evidence of two oi 
them, one being the eminent naturalist Belon, has been already 
given (EXTERMINATION, p. 226, note 2).2 It was doubtless the scav- 
enger in ordinary of that and other large towns (as a kindred species 
now is in Eastern lands), except where its place was taken by the 
Raven ; for Sir Thomas Browne wrote (circa 1662) of the latter at 
Norwich—‘“ in good plentie about the citty which makes so few 
Kites to be seen hereabout.” Wolley has well remarked of the 
modern Londoners that few “who see the paper toys hovering over 
the parks in fine days of summer, have any idea that the bird from 
which they derive their name used to float all day in hot weather 
high over the heads of their ancestors.” Even at the beginning of 
the present century the 
“ Kites that swim sublime 
In still repeated circles, screaming loud,” 
formed a feature of many a rural landscape in England, as they had 
done in the days of Cowper. But an evil time soon came upon the 
species. It must have been always hated by the henwife, but the 
resources of civilization in the shape of the gun and the gin were 
denied to her. They were, however, employed with fatal zeal by 
the gamekeeper ; for the Kite, which had long afforded the suprem- 
est sport to the falconer, was now left friendless,* and in a very 
1 Glead or Gled, cognate with glide, is also another English name. 
2 Its abundance was almost simultaneously testified by Turner, who added 
that it was so rapacious as to snatch meat from the hands of children in our 
towns and cities. 
3 George, third Earl of Orford, died in 1791, and Col. Thornton, who with him 
had been the latest follower of this highest branch of falconry, broke up his hawk- 
ing establishment not many years after (¢f Lubbock, Fawn. Norf. ed. 2, pp. 227 
231). There is no evidence that the pursuit of tlhe Kite was anywhere reserved to 
kings or privileged persons, but the taking of it was quite beyond the powers of the 
