508 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
Suez Canal, but only once in Palestine, in the Jordan valley, 
close to the Dead Sea. 
12. ELANUs MELANOPTERUS. Black-winged Kite. 
This beautiful bird of prey was first observed at Beliane on 
the Nile, and from thence to the Nubian frontier was every- 
where seen in suitable localities. By the 1st of March it had 
already paired, and was hunting its prey in couples. Single 
trees near villages, little gardens and palm-groves, telegraph- 
poles, mud heaps and walls among the waving corn-fields, 
embankments by canals, and solitary trees by the sides of 
pools are the favourite haunts of these birds. They have no 
fear of man, and one can walk right up to them and shoot them 
within a few paces; even when missed, they circle round the 
sportsman, inquisitively, but without taking alarm, and pre- 
sently settle down quite close to him. In its flight and in its 
restless butterfly way of fluttering about, the Black-winged 
Kite is undeniably a most peculiar bird of prey. 
18. Mitvus ater. Black Kite. 
In company with the Parasitic Kite, the Black Kite is 
distributed over the whole of Egypt, but is not so common as 
the former, nor so bold in its behaviour in the towns. It 
certainly flies about the houses, and especially the towns on 
the banks of the Nile, still it does not-come so close to men 
and dogs as its relative. The Parasitic Kite is always the 
first at a carcass, and the Black Kite does not follow it until 
a few minutes later. In Palestine one comes across the 
Black Kite only, and here and there a Common Kite. 
About Jerusalem and on the Jordan I saw many Black 
Kites, but not such numbers of them as in Africa. 
14, Minvus migrans. Parasitic Kite. 
This bold bird, which is to be seen in wearisome abundance 
