FALCONIDA. 337 
THE BLACK KITE. 
Mitvus mfcrans (Boddaert). 
Although the Black Kite is a regular summer-visitor to the 
valleys of the Rhine and the Moselle, as well as to other districts of 
the Continent at no great distance from our shores, yet only one 
example is known to have been obtained in Great Britain. This, an 
adult male, now in the Newcastle Museum, was taken in a trap in 
the deer-park at Alnwick, and brought in a fresh state to the late 
Mr. John Hancock on May 11th 1866. 
On Heligoland the Black Kite has seldom been identified, but 
it arrives on the southern side of the Baltic about the end of March, 
and leaves again in September. Owing to its partiality for marshy 
forests, open valleys and the vicinity of water, it is local in its 
distribution, and it is only an irregular visitor to Holland, Belgium 
and the north of France; but it breeds annually, in suitable 
localities, in Germany, the lake-districts of Switzerland, and the 
southern half of France; while it is abundant in Spain from the 
beginning of March until October, though not numerous on the 
mainland and islands of Italy, or in Greece. It is distributed over 
Central. Europe, and is found in Russia, from Finland and the 
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