8 The Queensland Naturalist October, 1931. 
In dealing with the hawks, I will take first those that 
I consider of most value, namely, the Kites. These hawks 
live almost entirely on insects, mice and lizards. Very 
rarely on birds and then only on young ones unable to 
%■ , 
One of the commonest Kites in the West is the Black 
Kite ( Milvus migrans). This bird is not really black, but 
a dark mottled brown. It is the common scavenger Kite 
of Egypt. They are very numerous in the interior of 
Queensland, and were at one time very common about the 
Rockhampton district, where they frequented the slaughter 
yards, now they seem to have confined themselves to the 
interior parts and are never seen in the coastal districts. 
They consume enormous numbers of grasshoppers, feeding 
among them on the ground, but when the hoppers develop 
wings, they are caught as they fly and devoured as the 
hawks circle in the air. 
Other members of the Kite family, the square-tailed, 
the black-shouldered, and the letter- winged, are also splen- 
did destroyers of insects and vermin. 
Two other hawks that are valuable to the man on the 
land are classed with the Falcons. Why so, I do not 
know, as they have none of the destructive qualities of the 
Falcons. 
I refer to the Brown Hawk ( Falco berigora) and the 
Nankeen Kestrel ( Falco cenchroides ) . The Brown Hawks, 
like the Kites, destroy great numbers of grasshoppers and 
other insects ; they are also very impartial to lizards and 
snakes. I have frequently seen them with snakes from 
three to four feet in length. I lately saw one dart into 
dense smoke that was pouring from a hollow in a burning 
tree, and re-appear with a snake about eighteen inches long 
in its claws. The snake had evidently been driven from 
the hollow by the smoke. 
A grass fire attracts numbers of these birds, and they 
frequently dart through the dense smoke almost into the 
flames, after insects, lizards, or small snakes that are driven 
out by the fire. The Brown Hawk is found all over Aus- 
tralia, and is far commoner in the interior parts than the 
coastal. 
That pretty little hawk, the Vankeen Kestrel ( Falco 
cenchroides) “mis-called the chicken hawk,” is another 
valuable pest destroyer, as its food consists almost exclu- 
sively of insects, lizards and mice. 1 sav, almost exclu- 
sively, as 1 have known them to catch young quail and 
larks. The Kestrel is a friendly little hawk and is often 
found about settlements where the ground is cleared, and 
where they have more room for their peculiar habit of 
