KITE. 55 



advances, sometimes for a time poising itself in a stationary 

 position. If its nest is attacked or approached, it dashes in 

 a wild manner around and near its enemy, supposed or real, 

 with screams, either caused by alarm for its young, or intended 

 to excite fear in its assailant. When searching for prey, it 

 flies at a moderate height from the ground, at an elevation 

 of from about twenty to about one hundred feet, performing 

 a variety of sweeps and curves, and appearing, as indeed at 

 other times, to be not only guided, but almost partially 

 supported, by its wide-spread and expansive tail, which it 

 moves about from side to side. Buffon (quoted by Macgillivray) 

 says of its flight, 'one cannot but admire the manner in which 

 it is performed ; his long and narrow wings seem immoveable ; 

 it is his tail that seems to direct all his evolutions, and he 

 moves it continually; he rises without effort, comes down as 

 if he was sliding along an inclined plane: he seems rather to 

 swim than to fly.' Frequently, however, his flight is unsteady 

 and dashing, strongly resembling that of several of the 

 Seagulls. 



The food of this species consists of small quadrupeds, such 

 as leverets, moles, mice, rats, and rabbits; game, and other 

 birds, especially the young; frogs, lizards, snakes, worms, 

 insects, and occasionally carrion, and it is said by Bewick that 

 it is particularly fond of chickens, but that the fury of the 

 mother is generally sufficient to scare it away. In search of 

 these, it, like the Sparrow-Hawk, sometimes approaches the 

 poultry yard, but doubtless such approaches were far more 

 common in former times than now. Montagu, however, in 

 his Ornithological Dictionary, gives an account of one which 

 was so eager in its attempt to obtain some chickens from a 

 coop, that it was knocked down by a servant girl with a 

 broom; and he relates that on another occasion, one of these 

 birds carried off a portion of some food which a poor woman 

 was washing in a stream, notwithstanding her efforts to repel 

 him. They have been known to feed on fish, the produce of 

 their own capture from a broad river, and will readily devour 

 the reliques of a herring or other fishery. 



The Kite, like the Buzzards, and unlike the Eagles and 

 Falcons, does not pursue its prey, but pounces down unawares 

 upon it. 



Its note is called by gamekeepers and others its 'whew', a 

 peculiarly shrill squeal. 



The author of the 'Journal of a Naturalist,' has the fol- 



