460 AVES— KITE. 



covered with thick herbage ; the female lays three or four eggs of a whitish 

 color, irregularly sprinkled with dusky spots. Though smaller, it is more 

 active and bold than the common buzzard, and when pursued, it faces its 

 antagonist, and makes a vigorous defence. 



Birds of this kind differ much ; in some the crown and back part of the 

 head being yellow ; v/hile some are uniformly of a chocolate broAvn, with a 

 tinge of rust color. 



THE KITEi 



Is distinguished by his forked tail, and slow sailing flight, in which he seems 

 perpetually on the wing. He is larger than the common buzzard. He has 

 large eyes, yellow legs and feet, and black talons. The head and back are 

 of a pale ash hue, which is varied across the shafts of the feathers by longi- 

 tudinal lines. His neck is reddish ; the feathers covering the inside of the 

 wings are red, with black spots in the centre ; and the lesser rows of the 

 wing feathers are party-colored black, red, and white. He lives only upon 

 accidental carnage, as almost every bird in the air is able to make good his 

 retreat against him. He may be, therefore, considered as an insidious thief, 

 who only prowls about, and, when he finds a small bird wounded, or a 

 young chicken strayed too far from the mother, instantljf, seizes the hour of 

 calamity, and, like a famished glutton, is sure to shoAv no mercy. His 

 hunger, indeed, often urges him to acts of seeming desperation. We have 

 seen one of them fly round and round for a while to mark a clutch of 

 chickens, and then on a sudden dart like lightning upon the unresisting 

 little animal, and carry it off, the hen in vain crying out, and the boys 

 hooting and casting stones to scare it from its plunder. For this reason, of 

 all birds, the kite is the good housewife's greatest tormenter and aversion. 



' Falco viilvus, Lin. 



