NESTING OF THE BLACK KITE IN VERONA. 245 



very probable. Salvadori, Giglioli, and Martorelli had speci- 

 mens from these regions. The Marquis Lepri writes to me as 

 follows : — " This Kite is with us a summer visitor, and fairly 

 abundant without being positively common. It appears between 

 the end of March and the beginning of April. It continues to 

 pass until the latter end of May. It is then easily met with, 

 being less shy than M. ictinus. I have this year seen more than 

 one about the country-side. Several specimens are brought 

 every year to the shop of the taxidermist De Dominicis, generally 

 birds that have been caught in the Eoyal Domain of Castel 

 Porziano, situated on the coast between Ostia and Anzio. So far 

 as I have been able to observe, the Black Kite frequents running 

 water, especially streams bordered by large trees. In the case of 

 a specimen which I procured a few days ago, the stomach was 

 full of fish. As for the breeding of the Black Kite, at least as 

 far as concerns our province, I do not think that it occurs on the 

 mountains, as Bonaparte states. I have never seen it on the 

 mountain, neither is it known there. M. ictinus is also very rare 

 on these heights ; it does not breed here, though so abundant on 

 the plain. M. ictinus breeds on large trees in woods on the plain, 

 or beside running water; I have observed its nest several times. 

 Referring to the extensive information which I have gathered on 

 the subject, I think that the same holds good of M. migrans, and 

 this is confirmed by the fact that at the beginning of July last 

 year I saw in the shop of a bird-dealer a M. migrans scarcely 

 covered with feathers that had been taken from its nest on one 

 of those gigantic elm trees that border the Tiber near Castel 

 Giubileo, a few chilometres from Rome." 



Southern Italy. — It is rare, according to the eminent 

 De Romita, in the Puglie. De Fiore excludes it from Catanzaro, 

 and Moschella mentions it doubtfully in his Catalogue of the 

 Birds of Reggio, Calabria. He writes to me, however, in a letter 

 of June 3rd, 1897 : — " I have frequently observed the Black Kite 

 this year ; about twenty specimens have been caught. I have 

 only been able to procure one specimen for myself — a male — and 

 certainly not cheap." I also secured two specimens caught in 

 that district on the 7th and 18th of May, kindly sent to me by 

 Dr. Angelo Pertile. Our ornithological information from this 

 vast region is, unluckily, very incomplete, 



