Sparrow Hawk Kite. 83 



the male and female so conspicuous as in this species, and as the 

 difference in colour is also great, no wonder that they should 

 often be mistaken for distinct species. In this country it is 

 sparingly met with throughout, nowhere very numerous, and 

 nowhere entirely wanting, though the more wooded and enclosed 

 parts are its favourite haunts. But it is not by any means so 

 common with us now as it was thirty years ago. The scientific 

 name Accipiter is from wximnjg, ( swiftly flying ;' and Nisus was 

 the mythical king of Megara, said to have been changed into a 

 Sparrow Hawk. In France it is L'Epervier ; in Germany Die 

 Sperber ; in Italy Sparviere da Fringuelli; in Sweden Sparf- 

 Hok; in Spain Oavilan and Cernicalo; and in Portugal Gavido. 



11. THE KITE (Falco milvus). 



Though once the terror of the poultry yard, and the admiration 

 of the naturalist, this graceful bird is now, alas ! almost (I fear I 

 must say quite) extinct in this county, and I much doubt whether 

 many individuals, unless stragglers, are to be found south of the 

 Tweed or east of Wales ; and yet but a very few years since they 

 were not uncommon in our homesteads and woods. The Rev. G. 

 Marsh has seen them at Winterslow, and once possessed a tame 

 bird which was taken young in Clarendon Woods. Mr. Hay ward, 

 when a boy, saw a nest of them at Lavington. The Rev. G. Powell 

 informed me that on Feb. 3, 1864, a fine male bird was killed at 

 Longleat, and that he had seen it in the flesh ; and Rev. A. 

 P. Morres records another shot at Kingston Deverill, and now 

 in the collection of Mr. Rawlence, of Wilton. In the report for 

 1867 of the Marlborough College Natural History Society, it is 

 stated that a pair built for some years at a certain spot on the 

 farther side of Martinsell. Mr. Stratton tells me that two nests 

 have been taken, to his knowledge, by people now living in his 

 neighbourhood, one at Fiddington Down, the other at West 

 Lavington. At Lydiard Millicent, the seat of Lord Bolingbroke, 

 there was a tree, which very probably still exists, called the 

 'Kite-tree,' and here Kites bred from time immemorial, and 

 here they were always to be seen in the spring a few years ago. 



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