NOTES ON THE KITE IN SOMERSET. 379 



districts of central Devon, while its nest has been found in that 

 county at a much later date. In Gloucestershire it was not 

 uncommon in some districts about the middle of last century, 

 frequenting the sheep-pastures of the higher Cotswolds, and it 

 lingered on as a nesting species in the Forest of Dean until 

 about 1870. It is probable that the Kite vanished from Somerset 

 as a resident species about the middle of the nineteenth century. 

 I can find scarcely any definite records of the rinding of nests 

 and eggs, though old countrymen will sometimes say that the 

 birds were frequently to be seen in their early days, or in the 

 days of their fathers, and some testify to having seen the eggs. 

 A pair, however, were known to nest in the woods overhanging 

 the Kiver Barle, above Tarr Steps, about the year 1850, the late 

 Joseph Jekyll, a former rector of Hawkridge, having often men- 

 tioned the fact to his family. This is the only definite record I 

 have come across of the nesting of the Kite in the county of 

 Somerset. 



During the last forty years the Kite has only been a casual 

 visitor to Somerset, the examples seen having strayed perhaps 

 from the few remaining haunts in Wales. From time to time a 

 stray specimen has been trapped or shot, and has found its way 

 into some private collection or local museum. The late rector of 

 Brushford, near Dulverton, has informed me in writing that the 

 last Kite he saw in those parts was soaring over his house about 

 the year 1883. In 1888 two Kites were obtained in the county — 

 one caught by a keeper in a trap set for young Kestrels, at 

 Chewton Mendip, and the other shot at Cleeve Wood, near Yatton. 

 These were both set up, and represent, so far as I know, the last 

 Kites obtained in the county. 



And so in Somerset, as in the greater part of the British 

 Isles, the Kite is now a bird of the past, though at one time it 

 must have been quite numerous. We know that in the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries the bird was so abundant about London 

 Bridge, that foreigners visiting the city were struck by the fact, 

 and made mention of it in their writings. 



2g2 



