154 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
chickens, was tolerated, as it still is in some parts of the 
continent. 
In one of his letters to the Swiss naturalist Gesner, 
a translation of which is given by Macpherson in the 
“ Zoologist,”’* Turner, writing of the Kite, says :—‘‘ We 
have Kites in England, the like of which I have seen 
nowhere else. Our birds are much larger than the German 
birds, more clamorous, tending more to whiteness, and much 
greedier. For such is the audacity of our Kites, that they 
dare to snatch bread from children, fish from women, and 
handkerchiefs from off hedges, and out of men’s hands. 
They are accustomed to carry off caps from off men’s heads 
when they are building their nests.’ This recalls the 
description by the Venetian Ambassador before quoted, 
and to go much further back, the testimony of Aulian, who 
speaks of the daring of Kites in the second century, and 
accuses them of snatching hair from men’s heads, when 
engaged in nesting.§ Jn spite of such delinquencies, they 
have ever been given special protection, nor was this withheld 
from them in England, where there was a fine for killing one.|| 
At the present day the Red Kite, Milvus ictinus, would be 
considered commoner than M. migrans in Western Germany. 
The (? Golden) Eagle, the Erne, and the Osprey are 
all distinguished by Turner and named as inhabitants of 
England, but the Peregrine Falcon appears to have escaped 
him. Of Owls he recognised three, of which one was the 
Long-eared Owl and one the Eagle Owl. 
Turner died in 1568, his age is not known, but he did 
not live to be seventy. A monument was put up to his 
* 1898, p. 340. 
} “Historie Animalium,” lib. II., p. 586. Reference supplied by Mr. 
Mullens. 
t Supra, p. 82. 
§ Aflian, ‘De Animalium Natura,”’ lib. I. 
|| That the Kite did not cease to be common in the British Isles until 
long after this is certain. Francis Willughby and John Ray must have been 
tamiliar with their gliding flight, the former (who died in 1672), describes 
them as ‘‘ very noisome’”’ to chickens, ducklings and goslings, probably 
referring to Warwickshire, where most of his short life was spent. 
In churchwardens’ books we not infrequently find entries of moneys 
paid tor their destruction ; the church accounts of Tenterden in Kent show 
payments for three hundred and eighty in fourteen years, commencing 1677 
(N. F. Ticehurst, ‘‘ Brit. Birds,” Mag., XIV., p. 34). 
