Tlieir Eggs aitd Nests. 51 



the gliding form you caught a glance of rounding the 

 corner of the barn and making a rapid, but by no 

 means noisy, stoop among the young poultry of 

 various kinds in lively attendance on their mothers, — 

 you may be tolerably sure that the intruder was a 

 Sparrow Hawk, and that some hapless Dove or 

 Chicken has lost the number of its mess. Not that 

 he does not like wild game as well as tame poultry. 

 Mr. Selby mentions one nest, containing five young 

 ones, in or close to which was found a Peewit, two 

 Blackbirds, a Thrush, and two Greenfinches, all fresh, 

 and half plucked. The Sparrow Hawk is believed 

 seklom to give itself the trouble of building a nest for 

 itself. Some old or deserted nest of the Crow or 

 Magpie, particularly the former, and whether in a 

 fork of the tree or high among its top, usually serves 

 its turn ; and in this, very slightly repaired if at all, 

 the mother bird lays four or five eggs, of a pale 

 blueish white, abundantly and most variably blotched 

 with dark red brown. In some few eags this darker 

 colour is more sparingly bestowed ; but they are not 

 frequent, and, usually, the red is more or less con- 

 fluent about some part of the ^^^ — either end or 

 the middle — more rarely dispersed in very distinct 

 spots. — Fig. 7, plate I. 



KITE — Milvics ictinus ; formerly, M. vulgaris. 



Glead, Glade, Gled, Fork-tailed Kite or Glead, 

 Puttock, Crotchet-tailed Puttock. 



One very rarely sees a Kite nowadays in our custom- 

 ary field ramblings and observings, or, indeed, any- 

 where ; though, to be sure, some one did write word 



