80 BRITISH BIRDS. 



MILVUS ATER. 

 BLACK KITE. 



(PLATE 5.) 



Accipiter inilvus niger, Briss. Orn. i. p. 413 (1760). 



Accipiter korschun, Gmel. N. Comm. Petrop. xv. p. 444 (1771). 



Falco migrans, Bodd. Tail PI. Enl. p. 28 (1783). 



Falco ater*, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 262 (1788) ; et auctorum plurimorum Temminck, 



(SundevaU), (Kaup), (Layard), (Jerdon), Naumann, &c. 

 Milvus ater (Gmel.}, Daud. Traite, ii. p. 149 (1800). 



Falco fusco-ater (Gmel.), Meyer, in Mey. u. Wolfs Taschenb. i. p. 27 (1810). 

 Accipiter milvus, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-As. i. p. 358 (1826). 

 Milvus niger, Bp. Com}). List B. Eur. 8f N. Amer. p. 4 (1838). 

 Hydroictinia ater (Gmel.'), Kaup, Classif. Saug. u. Vog. p. 115 (1844). 

 Milvus setolius, Schl. Vog. Nederl. pi. 32 (1854). 

 Milvus migrans (Bodd.), Strickl. Orn. Syn. p. 133 (1855). 



The Black Kite lias no right whatever to be considered a British bird. 

 It is included in the British list solely on the authority of a single example 

 caught in a trap in the Red-Deer Park at Alnwick in May 1866 (' Ibis/ 

 1867, p. 253). This may have been a spring migrant which had acci- 

 dentally overshot its mark ; or it may have escaped from an aviary. 



There are five forms of the Black Kite. One of these, M. cegyptius, 

 distinguished by having a yellow bill, is probably specifically distinct. It 

 breeds in N.E. Africa, Palestine, Arabia, and Asia Minor, occasionally 

 straying into Greece, and wintering in South Africa. Of the other four 

 forms, two (an eastern and a western) are northern races, and two (also 

 an eastern and a western) are southern races. M. ater breeds in suitable 

 localities throughout Europe south of the Baltic, and eastwards in Asia 

 Minor, Palestine, Persia, and Turkestan. On migration it has been known 

 to stray as far north as Archangel. It passes through N.W. Africa on mi- 

 gration, where a few remain to breed, and winters in Africa south of the Atlas 

 Mountains. In Turkestan it meets and apparently interbreeds with M. 

 melanotis, which extends eastwards through S. Siberia to China and Japan, 



* The Black Kite is best known as M. ater or M. niger ; but the former name has not 

 only been used by the greatest number of ornithologists, but is also the oldest of the two. 

 Messrs. Newton and Dresser have, however, set a bad example in following Strickland in 

 his adoption of Boddaert's name ; and Sharpe has made bad worse by adopting a name 

 which is practically unknown. There can be no doubt that Gerini was probably the first 

 ornithologist after Linnaeus who clearly discriminated between this species and the 

 Common Kite ; and under cover of the mischievous law of priority it is not improbable 

 that some future ornithologist with more zeal than discretion will attempt to call the 

 Black Kite F. milano, founded upon his figure (i. pi. xxxviii.). 



