S24f THE KITE. 



sight, and a person with a club is set to watch. The 

 moment that the kite spies the chicken, down it 

 pounces, and as the chicken is purposely left in a 

 retired place, the feast is instantly begun. While 

 it is luxuriating, the peasant comes in the rear of it, 

 and aims a blow at its wing, which generally takes 

 effect, indeed, if the bird be not hit at all, a second 

 blow may be given, and the kite is soon dispatched, 

 and nailed on the wall in terror em to all future kites. 

 This is often accomplished in so short a time, that the 

 chicken, though killed, is not mangled. This attention 

 to its meal, on the part of the kite, has procured it the 

 adjunct of " greedy" to its provincial name of " glead." 

 Nor is its absorption by the feast taken advantage of 

 by man only ; for though we have never seen an in- 

 stance, we have heard it often stated that the pole-cat, 

 and even the common weasel, will set upon and dispatch 

 the kite while it is feeding, and then eat up both the 

 preyer and the prey. 



Though thus cowardly arid rapacious, the kite is 

 both a large and a handsome bird. When full-grown, 

 the length is nearly two feet and a half, and the extent 

 of the wings five and a half. More of the length is 

 taken up by the tail, than in the case of eagles and 

 hawks ; so that the kite is not so heavy in proportion 

 to its extent, its weight being generally under three 

 pounds. The beak is weaker and more slender in pro- 

 portion ; and the tarsi are thin and scaly, and the claws 

 weak, and not very much hooked ; but still, from the 

 nature of its food, and the fact of its killing nothing 

 on the wing, as the eagles and hawks do, but pouncing 

 its prey on the ground, and attacking it with beak and 



