DESTRUCTION FOR SAFETY OF MAN AND STOCK 133 



The GOSHAWK (Astur palumbarius], mentioned by Boece 

 in the sixteenth century as a Scottish "fowl of reif," and till 

 the middle of the nineteenth century said to be a regular 

 breeder in the forests of northern Scotland of Darnaway 

 in Morayshire and Rothiemurchus in Inverness-shire can 

 no longer be reckoned a native of the British Isles. 



Like the Sea Eagle, the KITE or GLED (Milvus milvus) 

 (Fig. 33, p. 135) exemplifies how frail is the security of 

 numbers when man sets his hand to interfere. It is almost 

 impossible to believe that a bird once so common that its 

 vast numbers in the streets of London excited the wonder 

 of foreign visitors in the reign of Henry VIII, should have 

 suffered so grievously that in 1905 the few survivors in the 

 British Isles could be counted on the fingers of one hand. 

 Yet so it is, and the love of the "greedy gled " for the 

 poultry yard had much to do with the warfare which has all 

 but exterminated it. 



And other losses too the dames recite, ' 



Of chick and duck and gosling gone astray, 



All falling preys to the swooping kite : 



And on the story runs from morning, noon and night. 



CLARE. 



It was once a common bird in Scotland, breeding not 

 only in the wilder areas, but even in counties so far south 

 as Stirlingshire and Ayrshire. By the middle of the nine- 

 teenth century, however, it had been driven to the solitudes 

 of Perth, Inverness, Banff and Aberdeen shires. From there 

 also it has been banished, though here and there a Clach-a- 

 chambain or "Gled Stone," such as that at the head of 

 Glen Brierachan near Pitlochry, marks a well-remembered 

 perching place of the Gled. From Scotland, and from 

 England as well (except in Herefordshire, on the Welsh 

 border), the Kite has been utterly extirpated, and now only 

 a few survivors linger on in Wales, where from the miserable 

 remnant of five birds known to exist in 1905, stringent pro- 

 tection has been fortunate in slowly increasing its numbers. 



Less fortunate has been the OSPREV or FISH HAWK (Pan- 

 dion haliaetus] (Fig. 45, p. 192), which a hundred years ago 

 was so abundant in Scotland that naturalists did not trouble 

 to record its haunts. At the end of the eighteenth century, 

 it probably bred regularly 'so far south as Dumfriesshire, 



