122 THE AGE OF EELS 



with dark flecks ; the rest of the plumage displays beauti- 

 ful variations in a brown key, ranging from bright russet 

 to nearly black in the primaries and outer tail-coverts. 



To wild game this fine bird bodes little or no mischief, 

 although he who would try to persuade the average 

 gamekeeper of this will find his work cut out for him. 

 The kite prefers carrion and offal to any other diet ; hence 

 its habit of frequenting human habitations. But when 

 this falls short, it will rob the poultry yard, and one 

 trembles to think what ravages it would commit among 

 the pheasant coops. The bird that visited Westminster 

 last spring must have seen little to tempt it to resume 

 the ancient haunts of its race. The Thames Conservancy 

 and the County Council have co-operated to make the 

 channel of their river as pure as that of the Tay at 

 Dunkeld. No toothsome rubbish is suffered to litter our 

 streets as in the good old Elizabethan times. So, after 

 resting five minutes or so upon the top of Westminster 

 Palace, the first kite known to have visited London 

 within living memory spread his powerful pinions and 

 scornfully winged his flight in a northerly direction. 



XXX 



This is the month of eel-fare, when myriads of young 

 me Age ee l s > of the thickness of a crowquill, ' fare ' up 

 of Eels from the sea into every river and rivulet in the 

 land, and make their way into every runnel, ditch, and 

 pond of the country. In a former bundle of these irre- 

 sponsible scraps, I described the advance which had been 

 made of late years in knowledge of the eel's life-history, 

 which had baffled every naturalist, from Aristotle to 



