204 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



About the same time that Clarke made his observations, the 

 Kite nested in the neighbourhood of Windermere. Words- 

 worth, in a juvenile poem, ' An Evening Walk ' (the scene of 

 which is laid near Kydal), alludes to the presence of the 

 ' silver' d kite/ — an expression suggested, no doubt, by the 

 grey crown of an old bird. The late Mr. William Pearson of 

 Crosthwaite stated in 1839, that when Isaac Walker lived at 

 Sawrey, about 1790, a pair or two of Kites built their nests 

 among a number of tall trees, near the Ferry Inn, on the west side 

 of Windermere. Some of these birds were destroyed by idle 

 fellows, who shot them at their nests. Isaac Walker reared a 

 young Kite, taken out of a nest which had contained two young 

 ones ; it became very tame, and would sit on its owner's hand. 1 



The late Captain W. Kinsey Dover made close inquiries about 

 the former presence of Kites near Keswick. He learnt that a 

 Mr. Gaskett and one John Graves harried a Kite's nest, built 

 in some ivy on the west side of Castle Head, in 1809 ; up to 

 which date only Mr. Pearson observed the Kite in Crosthwaite 

 parish. The late Mr. W. Dickinson wrote that, 'since 1820 I 

 have not seen a glead. Before then they were not plentiful, but 

 not many days would pass without my seeing one, and seldom 

 more, at a time.' Mr. Sawer of Threlkeld showed me a fine 

 Kite, which he bought for £2 at a sale. This bird had been 

 shot by John Pearson at Portinscale near Keswick, in 1840, 

 and is perhaps the last of the indigenous race of Kites that 

 inhabited the Lake district from prehistoric times. Joseph 

 Woof, a native of Watermillock, a yeoman, at whose house Mr. 

 W. Hodgson lodged from 1840 to 1851, told the latter that the 

 Glede or ' swallow-tailed kite ' had, within his recollection, 

 nested regularly at Priest's Crag, and occasionally at Birch 

 Crag, near Gowbarrow. 



Mr. Woof died in 1851, aged 88 years, so that his recollection 

 of the Kite as a boy might date back (and no doubt did) to the 

 time when Clarke wrote, and when Isaac Walker took the 

 young Kite from the nest beside Windermere. Mr. Hodgson 

 met other natives of Watermillock who well remembered the 

 Kite nesting as described by Mr. Woof, and considers that the 

 1 Letters, Papers, and Journals of William Pearson, p. 58. 



