COMMON KITE. 79 



five feet from the ground. When we were about twenty-five yards from 

 the nest the bird flew slowly off and wheeled round towards us. The nest 

 was lined with rags, the remains of a worsted stocking, part of a news- 

 paper (the ' Gartenlaube ') , lumps of hair from a cushion, and brown 

 paper. It contained two young Kites, the remains of a rabbit, and a 

 h.a.vas,ier v&t {Cricetus vulgaris) . On the same day we shot a Kite from 

 its nest in an oak about eighty feet from the ground, took another 

 Kite's nest from an oak only forty feet from the ground, containing only 

 one young bird, and took a fourth nest from an oak about thirty- 

 five feet from the ground, containing two young birds. In neither of 

 these two last nests was there any food ; but both were lined with wool, 

 rags, pig's hau-, and bits of newspaper. 



In Pomerania I only inspected one Kite's nest, which was at least 

 two miles from any house ; nevertheless it was lined with rags and paper. 

 It is not known that the male assists in the task of incubation ; but he feeds 

 the female on the nest . 



Sometimes the Kite will pick up a fish from the surface of the water in 

 the same way that his near relation in the south does. At Riddagshausen 

 I watched a Kite beating up and down over the lake, and once I saw it 

 stoop down to the surface of the water and apparently pick something up 

 in its claws, probably a fish, with which it flew away to a tree. 



The eggs of the Kite are generally three, sometimes only two in number, 

 and most closely resemble those of the Buzzards, but are, as a rule, dis- 

 tinguished from them by their more scratchy and streaky appearance. 

 When newly laid they are the palest bluish green in ground-colour, which 

 soon fades to white or nearly so, sparingly spotted and blotched with dark 

 reddish brown, with a few shell-markings, ill-defined and pale purplish 

 grey. Some specimens are far more heavily marked than others, being 

 clouded and dashed with colour, similar to Bough-legged Buzzards' eggs; 

 others are dirty bluish white in ground-colour, faintly streaked, in true 

 Bunting style, with wavy pale lilac markings ; and in others the markings 

 are evenly distributed almost over the entire surface, mixed with scratches 

 and streaks of colour, and sometimes massed thickly together on one end 

 of the egg. They vary in length from 2-4 to 2"! inch, and are seldom less 

 than If inch in breadth, the short eggs being the roundest and bluntest. 

 Fresh eggs may be obtained from the beginning to the end of April. 



The general colour of the upper parts of the Kite is reddish brown, each 

 feather with pale edges, those of the head and neck much elongated, greyish 

 white streaked with brown ; lower parts rufous-brown, streaked with dark 

 brown; tail, which is deeply forked, reddish brown, with dark bars. Bill 

 horn colour; cere, irides, and tarsi yellow; claws black. The female 

 bird is rather larger than the male, and has the underparts more rufous 

 and the head greyer. 



