FALCONIDA. 335 
THE KITE. 
MfLvus icrinus, Savigny. 
This species—the Anglo-Saxon Cyfa (Newton), and also known as 
the Gled or Glead, in allusion to its gliding flight—may, from the 
colour of its tail and upper plumage, conveniently be called the Red 
Kite, when the necessity arises for distinguishing it from its con- 
geners. Within the recollection of persons still living it was tolerably 
common in many of the wooded districts of England and Wales, 
but for many years it has not been known to breed in the south- 
eastern counties; one of the last nests known in Lincolnshire—a 
former stronghold—was in 1870 ; and in the few spots still inhabited 
in the Western Midlands, the Marches, and Wales, this handsome 
bird will soon be exterminated by the collector of British specimens 
unless the most stringent measures are taken. In Scotland it 
survives in a few localities, though there the value of its tail-feathers 
for salmon-flies adds to the risk which it elsewhere incurs from the 
gamekeeper ; while, exceptionally, stragglers have reached the 
Orkneys, and perhaps the Shetlands. The Kite is not, however, 
