78 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Scotland^ where a few nests are still to be met with in the most secluded 

 glens^ the pine-woods appear to be its favourite nesting-place. The Scotch 

 fir is the tree almost invariably selected. According to Mr. Booth^ whose 

 experience with these birds in Scotland of late years makes his observa- 

 tions upon them the more especially interesting, the nest varies con- 

 siderably in its position. Sometimes it is at the summit of a slender 

 bending pine, sometimes amongst the broadly spreading branches of a 

 gigantic fi.r — and at times at a height of but fifteen or eighteen feet from 

 the ground, and placed close to the trunk where several large limbs 

 branch out. In such a situation as this its bulky nest is often scarcely 

 visible from below. It is made principally of dry sticks and twigs, the 

 dead branches of pines, and lined with withered grass, moss, sheep's wool, 

 old rags, scraps of paper, or, in fact, any old rubbish that is conveniently 

 accessible. Few rapacious birds show such a partiality for collecting 

 rubbish for their nests as the Kite ; in fact it far excels the Jackdaw 

 or the House- Sparrow in this respect, or even a tame Raven or Magpie. 

 The nest is sometimes a very bulky structure, and is flat, similar to that of 

 the Sparrow-Hawk. 



I found the Kite by no means uncommon in the forests both of Bruns- 

 wick and Pomerania, where it is a summer visitor, arriving towards the 

 end of February or early in March, and leaving again for the south about 

 the middle of September. Dr. Holland informed me that they are gre- 

 garious during migration ; and on the 11th of last March I saw a flock of 

 migratory birds, consisting of eight Kites, a Crane, and a Peregrine 

 Falcon, crossing the Pyrenees near St. Sebastian. My kind friends 

 Dr. and Prof. Blasius and Oberamtmann Nehrkorn undertook to show me 

 plenty of Kites' nests in the Brunswick forests; and very successful they 

 were. We took the first nest on the 4th of May, in a beech tree, about 

 ninety feet from the ground. Both birds were flying over the forest all 

 the time. The nest contained two highly incubated eggs, and was about 

 twenty inches across and nearly as high. It was lined with all sorts of 

 rubbish — old rags, part of a newspaper, a piece of embroidery, part of an 

 old stocking, some moss, and goat's hair. The second nest we took on 

 the 12th of May. It was on a comparatively slender side branch of an 

 oak, about eighty feet from the ground, very long, about two feet by one 

 foot wide. We knocked loudly on the tree ; but the only result was that a 

 Kite appeared and began to fly around; so we concluded that she had 

 accidentally been absent when we arrived. Before, however, our climber 

 had got more than a fourth of the way up to the nest she flew oS, and 

 both birds continued to fly to and fro over the tree. The nest contained 

 three young Kites and the foot of a hare. It was lined with sheep's wool, 

 some rags, blue worsted, and some paper. 



We took the next nest on the 17th of May, in an oak tree, about forty- 



