56 OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



to soar in search of food, when I espied a large 

 bird travelling towards us just above the sky line 

 of the identical ridge. Its progress was an easy- 

 gliding soar, assisted by an occasional wing - flap 

 or two, and my field-glasses soon made out the 

 long sword-like wings and forked tail of a Kite. 

 As the bird had been seen several mornings in suc- 

 cession hunting the same range of hills alone, we 

 had some faint hopes that after all its mate might 

 be sitting on an undiscovered nest in the neigh- 

 bourhood, but unfortunately such proved not to 

 be the case. We walked round to the ancient 

 nesting-place where the birds have tried so long 

 and unsuccessfully to propagate their species, but 

 found nothing except grounds for suspicion that 

 they had already been robbed ; so we turned our 

 steps towards a lonely glen in which they some- 

 times make a second seasonal attempt to breed, 

 and had the good fortune to see them both at the 

 old eyrie figured in our illustration, which they 

 were engaged in repairing. 



In this same little glen a pair of Carrion Crows 

 reared a brood on one occasion, and the following 

 spring a pair of Kites came along and enlarged 

 the old structure for their own purposes. They 

 had an old nest in an adjoining wood which had 

 been repaired and added to for so many years 

 that it rose to a height of two or three feet, and 

 contained enough sticks to fill an ordinary cart. 



A year or two ago my brother and I tried to 

 save a Kite's nest in Wales, and, in response to 

 an appeal in The Field newspaper, received a 

 number of subscriptions to help us to defray 

 expenses. Unfortunately, when we arrived upon 

 the scene the eggs had already been stolen ; so 

 having failed in our object, we returned each 



