DISAPPEARANCE OF THE KITE 409 



Antiquities and Folklore of Worcestershire, in his 

 young days the Kite was well known at Alfrick, 

 about six miles north of Great Malvern : — 



"There was a coppice there in which they 

 might often be heard 'mewing,' as the country 

 people called their cry, but guns and persecution 

 drove them away. In 1850 the Kites returned to 

 their old haunts at Alfrick, for at that time the 

 principal house and estate there, called the 

 Grimsend, had fallen into Chancery, and was 

 unoccupied and waste." ^ 



In the West of England the Kite must at one 

 time have been common enough. We learn from 

 a good observer in West Gloucestershire, J. L. 

 Knapp, of Thornbury, that in his day (1829) these 

 birds had a habit of roosting in company instead of 

 in pairs, as is the case with most birds of prey. 

 On this point he relates the following curious 

 experience in his Journal of a Naturalist : — 



I can confusedly remember a very extraordin- 

 ary capture of these birds when I was a boy. Roost- 

 ing one winter evening on some very lofty elms, a 

 fog came on during the night, which froze early in 

 the morning, and fastened the feet of the poor Kites 

 so firmly to the boughs that some adventurous 

 youths brought down, I think, fifteen of them so 

 secured !!,' 



In one point of detail it is probable that the 

 writer was mistaken. It is more likely that the 

 inability of these birds to move was occasioned by 



1 Lees' Futures of Nature around- the Malvern Hills, 1856 

 (P- 17)- 



