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NOTES ON THE KITE (MILVUS ICTINUS) IN 

 SOMERSET. 



By F. L. Blathwayt. 



In older days five royal forests existed in Somerset, namely, 

 Exmoor, Neroche, North Petberton, Selwood, and Mendip, and 

 it is only reasonable to suppose that a forest-haunting bird like 

 the Kite must at one time have been very numerous in the 

 county. A glorious land it must have been in those old days for 

 the lovers of rural sport. Fine stretches of breezy moorland, 

 hundreds of acres of waving woods, lonely expanses of stagnant 

 mere and swampy marsh harboured in plenty the various birds 

 and beasts of the chase. What merry hunting-parties from 

 Saxon to Tudor days these forests must have witnessed ! Here, 

 indeed, King Alfred may have taught his haggard to stoop to the 

 lure, and here King John, ever keen for the chase and a frequent 

 visitor to Somerset, doubtless flew his well-trained Falcons at 

 Wild Duck, Heron, and Crane. Much of the wild glory of these 

 royal game-preserves has now departed, though some of them 

 still preserve many traces of their ancient features. In one of 

 them the wild Red-deer is still a beast of the chase, and the 

 clang of horn and deep notes of hound are heard there as in 

 days of yore. But the Kite is now a bird of the past. In the 

 times of the Stuart Kings it may here have formed a quarry for 

 the trained Gyr-falcons of the wealthy, but the birds were pro- 

 bably left much to themselves until the improvement in firearms 

 enabled man to wage an all too-successful war against these 

 ravagers of the poultry-yard. It is probable that a stricter form 

 of game-preserving, coupled with handier guns, tended to 

 diminish the numbers of this species, while the bird's own fond- 

 ness of making raids on goslings and poultry no doubt hastened 

 its extinction. If we remember this habit, it is far more likely 

 that the money paid for the destruction of "Kites," as recorded 

 in many old parish accounts, was really paid for the fork-tailed 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. X., October. 1906. 2 G 



