ACCIP1TRES. 



the plunderer, had been slipped into the laird's kain basket to 

 make out the tale. But those days have gone by ; the lands 

 are better cropped; the uplands are under cattle and sheep ; 

 the laird resides at a distance, and wants not hens, but 

 money ; the " latcher-steds" of the cottages are but so many 

 marks, a little greener, on the moor : there are no chickens 

 now, and scarcely a mouse ; so exit milvus the kite is com- 

 paratively a rare bird. 



And yet, one who has been familiar with such a place in its 

 better days (our young feelings bring finer weather on their 

 wings than summer suns and south-west zephyrs), feels that 

 there is a blank produced by the absence of the kite and the 

 cottages ; the more so that the country people are no more 

 redolent of pullets for their own use, than when the kite and 

 the laird were equally eager for chickens. The sight of a kite 

 quite at its ease, or at its labour if you will, on a fine clear 

 day, and when there is not a spot in the blue dome of heaven 

 but itself, is really a very fine one. It appears as if it had 

 charmed the atmosphere to move it as it lists, and without any 

 effort. The wings and tail are expanded, and yet they appear 

 hardly to move, as the bird ascends and descends, and wheels 

 and turns, now in wide and sweeping circles, and anon, drop- 

 ping lower down, it turns fairly round on the point of the wing 

 as a pivot. After it has long beat over one portion of pasture 

 without success, and there is a hill, a wood, or any place not 

 adapted to its habits, to be passed over before it reaches the 

 nest, the beauty and the easy smoothness with which it gets 

 up are unrivalled. It climbs eagle-height, and without eagle 

 effort, and from the very top of heaven surveys the land; 

 then shoots away to some distant place, that may appear 

 better adapted for its purpose. 



The kite feeds not only upon young birds, and small qua- 

 drupeds and reptiles, but upon carrion and garbage of all sorts, 

 in order to obtain which it will dare much when hungry. 



