BIRDS 203 



a Kendal jury found that George Middleton, Esquire, owed for 

 tenements holden by him, a spar-hawk or 12d. Similar instances 

 might be multiplied. The Sparrowhawk maintains its footing 

 in our preserves. No fewer than eight nests of the Sparrow- 

 hawk were robbed of their eggs in the Carlisle district in 

 1891. Mr. E. W. Parker of Skirwith informs me that on a 

 recent occasion his keeper shot a female Sparrowhawk off her 

 nest of six eggs. He took one egg and left five. Three weeks 

 later the same keeper shot another female Sparrowhawk off the 

 same nest, which contained ten eggs, — the second hen having 

 added five eggs to the five which she found in the nest. 



The male Sparrowhawk, owing to its light weight, feeds 

 chiefly on such hedgerow species as the Blackbird. In the 

 autumn of 1891, Dr. Gibson was shooting on a Westmorland 

 Moor, when he happened to wing a Grouse, which proved to be 

 a ' runner.' Down swooped a cock Sparrowhawk, killed his 

 quarry, and had already plucked some feathers off the back, 

 when Dr. Gibson reloaded and shot him. 



KITE. 



Milvus ictinus, Savigny. 



The only evidence that the Kite ever bred in the great woods 

 of the Eden valley, or elsewhere in the eastern part of our faunal 

 area, is supplied by Dr. Heysham, who says expressly that, in 

 his time, it bred in the woods near Armathwaite, and was 

 known in Cumberland as the glead. This refers to 1796. 



Among our western mountains it undoubtedly held out until 

 the early part of the present century. Eobinson, as early as 

 1709, alludes incidentally to its presence. Ulles water was 

 certainly one of its strongholds, but it bred near Derwentwater 

 and near Windermere. Clarke, whose Survey of the Lakes 

 appeared in 1787, tells us that ' the Kite (or glead) is a native 

 of this country and builds in trees, and, like both the afore- 

 mentioned, has not more than two eggs at a time : they provide 

 for their young, fish, flesh of any kind they can get, frog- 

 spawn, snails, etc. They are a dull, heavy, inactive bird, with 

 longer wings and tail than the Buzzard.' 1 



1 Survey of the Lakes, p. 190. 



