KITE. 
113 
forty-five eggs were very similar, and the five nests were all within a radius of 
a hundred yards. In 1885 she disappeared.” On my writing for confirmation, 
Mr. Davenport replied : — “ I am positive the birds are the same in each instance. 
Each egg betokens a likeness to its neighbour, and each year the brown markings 
on the eggs were fewer and less defined. Sparrow-Hawks, I have found, 
patch up, flatten, clean, and enlarge the old nests of Magpies and Carrion-Crows, 
but I doubt their ever building a new nest, as some authors assert they do. At 
Keythorpe, from a nest in a fir-plantation, I took fifteen eggs consecutively. 
After the fifteenth egg I molested her no more. For three consecutive years 
this bird adapted an old Pigeon’s nest to her use in one of the trees.” 
In Rutland. — As in Leicestershire. — Breeds regularly in Wardley and Stoke 
Woods, from whence several clutches of eggs and young have been obtained by 
Mr. Horn, to whom I am indebted for the following interesting note of the 
audacity of this bold Hawk in attacking prey so much larger than itself : — 
“On or about January 27th, 1888, as Charles Tomblin, of Bisbrook, was walking 
between Seaton and Barrowden, by the side of the River Welland, he saw a 
‘gaggle’ of about twelve White-fronted Geese (mentioned at p. 127) flying high 
overhead, and, whilst looking at them, he observed a Sparrow-Hawk rising to them. 
The first stoop, the Hawk did not fasten, and the Geese flew on; quickly mounting, 
it stooped a second time, striking one of the Geese, and knocking it down several 
feet ; a third time it mounted, and then the Geese came down ‘ belter skelter ’ 
into the river, hiding themselves amongst the reeds and rushes.” 
KITE. Milvus ictinus (Savigny). 
Now extinct in the counties. — Mr. Babington (Appendix ‘ Potter,’ p. 66) 
wrote : — “ One was shot from a window at Longclilf, in the act of watching 
some young tame pigeons,” and Harley remarked that, when he “ was a boy, 
the Kite was common and very widely and well known in the county,” it not 
being an unusual sight to witness one glide overhead towards the Forest of 
Charnwood and its bleak lone hills. He also stated that, even in his day, it 
occasionally frequented Martinshaw, Groby Woods, and the extensive belts of 
plantations flanking the Forest, and that, in the wooded domains of Gopsall 
and Donington, the Kite was not unknown. Further, “the species occurred at 
Belvoir Woods in the antumn of 1850.” This is the last authentic, dated, 
record I have of the occurrence of this now almost extinct Accipiter, and, with 
Harley, I can say, “ the regal Kite, once so abundant, has fled from its native 
wilds, and there remains at this day no vestige of its graceful form,” and only 
Kite Hill, in the Forest of Charnwood, remains to remind us that it was once 
sufficiently numerous to give its name to this place, where, no doubt, it formerly 
nested. The late Mr. Widdowson wrote me, in 1885, that he had received 
“ three or four during the last twenty-five years.” 
Col. F. Palmer of Withcote Hall wrote me, in February, 1888 : — “We used 
I 
