338 THE RED KITE 



living who knew it as fairly common in the wooded 

 parts of Great Britain Ireland excepted but the last 

 nest in Lincolnshire, where it once was abundant, was 

 known in 1870. In Wales, where a few still breed, the 

 landowners are trying to protect what they consider an 

 interesting species. The use of its tail feathers for 

 salmon-flies brings about the bird's destruction in Scot- 

 land, and the gamekeeper is its pronounced enemy. In 

 Ireland it has been seldom observed. Considering the 

 adders, rats, and enormous numbers of mice the Kite 

 devours, the term hurtful, as applied to it, ought perhaps 

 to be modified. 



A naturalist, writing in 1839, tells how he once took 

 away a young Kite from a nest containing two; it 

 became very tame and would sit on his hand, never 

 attempting to hurt him with its sharp talons. Some- 

 times he let it stray away and it always came home, 

 though it might be out for a day or two ; until it intruded 

 on an old crone in her cottage. She quickly killed it as 

 an ill-favoured fowl. I have seen a tame Kite swoop 

 down during a circling flight and take a mouse from the 

 hand of the late Lord Lilford as he sat, as was his wont, 

 in his wheeled chair among his favourite birds. 



Macaulay, alluding to the Kite's love for carrion 

 writes : 



* The kites know well the long stern swell 

 That bids the Romans close." 



Wordsworth was familiar with it in his walks : 

 " Near the midway cliff the silvered kite 



In many a whistling circle wheels her flight." 



Robert Burns was not a friend of the bird, Quarles' 

 " brood-devouring kite," for he likened the ''father of 



