1962 THE DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY 



is practically extinct in the southern and midland counties, although still lingering 

 in the west and north. The kites belong to a group of five genera, easily distin- 

 guished from the foregoing members of the subfamily by their more or less deeply- 

 forked tails, in which the outermost feathers are the longest. In the kites the 

 forking of the tail is of moderate depth, and approximately equal in length to the 

 interval between the tips of the primary and secondary quills, while the head is 

 devoid of a crest. The wings are long, reaching nearly to the end of the tail, with 

 the fourth or the third and fourth quills the longest, the beak slightly festooned, and 

 the metatarsus and toes short, with claws of moderate length. There are some half- 

 dozen species, exclusively confined to the Old World, where they range over all the 

 continents and Australia. Kites are the scavengers of the hawk family, feeding 

 chiefly on refuse and garbage, although also consuming insects, reptiles, and such 

 young or feeble birds or mammals as they can capture. Spending most of their time 

 on the wing, they soar gracefully in large, sweeping circles, and form a striking 

 feature in the bird life of all eastern cities. Their nests may be built either in trees, 

 buildings, or on rocks. 



The common or red kite of Europe, represented in the lower figure of our illus- 

 tration, attains a length of about twenty-four inches, and differs from all its congen- 

 ers by its rufous tail and the general rufous tinge of the entire plumage. In old 

 males the head and throat are whitish with brown streaks, the upper parts having 

 the feathers dark brown in the middle with rufous edgings, tending to buff on the 

 extreme margins, more especially in the wing coverts. The primary quills and 

 primary coverts are black, with some white at the base of their inner webs; the 

 upper tail coverts rufous, the tail feathers reddish brown, .with their inner webs 

 barred with dark brown, and the under parts rufous brown with a dark median 

 streak to each feather. The beak is horn color, and the cere and iris, together with 

 the legs and feet, yellow, the claws being black. The kite is distributed over the 

 greater part of Europe, breeding -as far north as the south of Scandinavia, and be- 

 coming gradually more rare in the eastern districts. In winter it ranges to Lower 

 Egypt, Algeria, and Palestine. The nest is built either in the fork of a tree or, 

 more rarely, in a cleft of rock, and the three or four eggs are laid in April or May. 

 Nothing comes amiss to a kite when building, and, while the main framework of 

 the nest is formed of sticks, these are supplemented by all kinds of rubbish, such as 

 bones, fragments of leather, and rags, the latter forming the lining. When their 

 nest is attacked, the parent birds make a vigorous resistance. As we have already 

 had occasion to notice, the kite was a favorite quarry in hawking, showing excel- 

 lent sport by the manner in which it endeavored to baffle the falcon in its efforts to 

 gain the advantage of position. More rarely the kite itself was trained to fly at the 

 smaller kinds of birds. 



The black or migratory kite (M. migrans] , represented in the upper figure of 

 our illustration, is a rather smaller bird than the last, from which it may be distin- 

 guished by its dark brown tail, faintly barred with a still deeper tint, the general 

 dark brown hue of the plumage of the upper parts, save on the head and throat, 

 where the feathers are whitish with dark stripes. It is further characterized by the 

 black beak, and the absence of any distinct patch of white at the base of the pri- 



