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collect for the night. Out of a group of fine old trees at Kiukiang he put up fully thirty 

 individuals. At Hankow, one night when passing in a sanpan over the flooded plain among the 

 willows that border the river, he disturbed a score out of two or three adjacent trees, and a few 

 nights later ten of them rose from the same place ; the trees had nothing to distinguish them 

 from hundreds of others growing around. These Kites also congregate on the ledges of the 

 river-cliffs, which they share with Peregrines and Cormorants. 



This Kite appears to breed in most parts of its range. Professor Menzbier informs me that 

 it breeds in the Governments of Perm, Ufa, and Orenburg. According to Mr. Zarudny it nests 

 occasionally in Transcaspia ; Mr. Scully found it breeding in Kashgharia ; Mr. Hume says that it 

 breeds in the Himalayas; and Col. Prjevalski found it breeding in Mongolia, and it also breeds 

 in China, Japan, and Siberia. 



Mr. Scully says (I. c.) that in Kashgharia, in the plains at all events, the nest seems always to 

 be placed on high trees. On the 27th April he found a nest, about ten miles or so east of 

 Yarkand, in a clump of poplar trees. This nest, which contained one young bird, was in the 

 form of a rude sort of platform, made up of sticks and twigs, about two feet square, placed on 

 three strong horizontally growing branches about thirty feet above the ground. 



Godlewski states (I. c.) that in Darasun he " found a nest on the 2nd May which contained 

 two fresh eggs, and on the 5th May another in which the eggs were incubated, and on the 5th of 

 June Ave found eggs about half incubated. The female sits close, but when once scared off she 

 flies far away directly anyone approaches, cries without ceasing, and returns to the nest directly 

 the intruder leaves. When the eggs are near hatching the female will not willingly leave the 

 nest, even when the tree is struck. The nest is placed at different altitudes in a tree, usually 

 about halfway up. It is lined with various rags collected from the rubbish-heaps." 



Mr. Hume says (Nests and Eggs of Ind. Birds, iii. p. 176) that in the Himalayas this Kite 

 deposits its eggs from January to the beginning of May, and builds a large nest of sticks, which 

 is placed on a tree. The eggs he describes as closely resembling those of Milvm yovinda, but 

 considerably larger, measuring from 2'23 to 2'43 inches in length, and from T75 to T88 in 

 breadth. 



The present species resembles Milvus govinda much more closely than it does II. migrans 

 in coloration, and is in fact a large form of that species, differing in having a larger amount of 

 white on the inner webs of the quills near the base, forming a white patch below the wing as in 

 the Buzzards ; and, as pointed out by Mr. Blanford, the abdomen and under tail-coverts are, as a 

 rule, much paler, but, he adds, some specimens appear almost to form a passage between the two. 

 Furthermore, I may remark that in M. melanotis the head is tawny or rufous, streaked with black, 

 whereas in M. migrans it is whitish, streaked with black. As the differences between the two 

 species are readily discerned I have not deemed it necessary to figure the present species. 



In the preparation of the above article I have examined, besides the series in the British 

 Museum, the following specimens : — 



E Mus. H. E. Dresser. 



a, $ ad. Tunka, Siberia, May 10th, 1856 (Dr. G. Raclde). b, S ad. E. Siberia, May 11th, 1856 (Dr. G. 

 Radde). c, immature. Yokohama, Japan, April 10th, 1880 (Owston). 



