REVIEW. 513 



8«)me one having both their tongue and their trust, utterly unfits them 

 for scientific use ; the more us it is given to very few Europeans to 

 know both birds and " vernaculars," We have no other bird of the 

 genus. 



Haliastur indies, the " Brahminy Kite " has "been classed alter- 

 nately with the fishing eagles and with the kites, and is allied to 

 both." Its bright chestnut back and small. size easily distinguish it 

 from the former and its aquiline shape from tho latter, at any distance. 

 Its habits differ according to position, as is the case indeed with many 

 birds of the group. In ports, where it is sometimes very abundant 

 (least in Bombay), its customs are as foul as those of the Pariah kite, 

 and it " has no manners at all." But on waters remote from human 

 dwellings, it feeds much like the Ring-tailed ehgle, and has even been 

 seen to attack a hare. The chief prey is of small fish, Crustacea, and 

 frogs. The species is of the Oriental tropics generally, unless two 

 forms of the Archipelago and Australia are to be given specific rank, 

 v/hich seems doubtful. It is not desirable to shoot this bird. The 

 plumage, so handsome at a distance, is coarse and poor in hand ; and 

 the bird often very dirty. 



The true kites (Milvus) " are all birds of moderate siae, with a 

 long forked tail" which distinguishes them at once. M. govinda, the 

 Pariah kite, is too well known to need remark, except that Mr, Blan- 

 f'ord, rejecting the separation of affinis, the small Australian form, 

 admits the specific rank of melanotis, the large Jungle kite (Hume's 

 major) which has better looks ; but not much better customs. The 

 genus is spread over the whole Old World and Australia i the Pariah 

 kite throughout the Oriental region between the tropics and some v/ay 

 outside of them. M, melanotis affects the Eastern Palasarctic region 

 from the latitude of Bombay to the borders of Siberia. It does not 

 breed in India, escept in the Himalayas. A smaller Y/estern form, 

 IvL migrans^ breeds within our province in Baluchistan, and is the 

 scavenger kite of the Levant ; as Jf. ictinus^ the " carrion kite " of 

 our fathers, was in Northern Europe.* 



Elanus is a small genus of kites with long unforked tails. We have 

 one species, E, cceruletis, not common ; but occurring throughout our 



* KoTE.— i>/. ictinus is now hardly a carrion feeder at all, in Britain and Northern France. 

 This habit in many biids depends o» man and his ways. 



