174 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



or in this neighbourhood. He is well known in Japan, and 

 summers in Siberia. His cousin, B. hemilasius, follows 

 mainly the same course. An allied species, Archibiiteo 

 strophiatus, is common in the north and west, and seems 

 to confine its nesting places to high rocks and cliffs, 

 whilst the other buzzards make use of rocks or tall trees 

 indifferently. 



Still another cousin is Pernis apivorus, or P.mellivora, 

 the bee or honey-eating buzzard. He is inclined to copper 

 colour in the brown of his back, with a much lighter breast 

 dotted with dark spots. Hiscereis blueandhis feet are golden. 

 He cannot, of course, confine himself to such a delicacy as 

 honeycomb. Indeed it is not so much the honey as the 

 insects that the bird seems to seek. Failing these it takes to 

 rats, frogs, small birds, and in confinement has been known 

 to eat even fish. Insects and their larvae, however, are 

 believed to be its favourite food, and on these it waxes so fat 

 that, if shot, oil is said to exude from its wounds. It is the 

 only member of the raptorial family that I know of that is 

 capable of running swiftly on the ground. The honey-eater 

 is not common in China. It comes only as an occasional 

 visitor apparently. In length it attains about two feet, and 

 in weight nearly two pounds. 



Kites are as common as the honey-buzzard is rare. 

 Our own familiar friend, Milvits melanotis, or the black-eared 

 kite, which comes back to us for the cold weather and 

 disappears with ducks in the spring, is too well known to 

 need much description. Unfortunately for our respect for 

 him, he is of the pariah kind, allied to the vultures, and given 

 to carrion rather than to the blood-red plunder of the 

 falcons. He is sometimes well over two feet in length, and 

 the spread of his wings is not infrequently a good five, so that 

 it is little wonder that he can soar as he does without apparent 

 effort, steered here and there by his long and extremely 

 mobile tail. All the admiration which the falcons and hawks 

 force from us by their boldness, their swiftness and dash, is 

 demanded by the kites for their grace on the wing. We watch 

 them circle high in the air over the Settlement at Shanghai, 

 some half dozen or more at a time following one another 

 around the ethereal spiral which seems to have no apex, 

 until their big bulk has dwindled to a dot. Near the ground 

 and when actually flying, there is nothing particularly 

 striking in the movement of the kite. Quite the reverse, as 

 a rule. There is all the lazy flapping of the buzzard, and 

 none of the rush of the peregrine. I have seen a kite follow 

 a hen pheasant which I had put up, but this was, so to speak, 

 more for fun or bravado than anything else. On the other 

 hand, on two or three occasions a kite has served me well 



