THE TRUE KITES. 
169 
surface of the body, and the much narrower black stripes on 
the under-parts. 
Eauge in Great Britain. —Formerly a common species in many 
parts of England and ^Vales, but now extinct in most of its 
former haunts, though it is said still to nest in certain places 
in the last-named principality, where it^ is protected. In 
Scotland, also, it occasionally breeds, but hr England the last 
nest recorded was in 1870 in Lincolnshire. There are still 
living people who can remember the Kite as anything but a 
rare bird, and the Marquis of Huntly’s head keeper at Aboyne 
could recall the time when it Iired regularly at Glentanar, and 
was always known as the “ Glentanar dead.” In Ireland it 
appears never to have been plentiful, and only some half-a- 
dozen instances of its capture have been recorded. In the 
Middle Ages it was a common species in England, and excited 
the curiosity of foreign visitors by its abundance in the streets 
of London, where it fed upon the offal and garbage. 
Eauge outside the British Islands. — Throughout the greater part 
of Europe the Kite is met with, and breeds in Central Europe 
and the Mediterranean countries, remaining in Southern Spain 
at all seasons, though the number is slightly increased by 
arrivals from the north in winter, wlien they pass over to North 
i\frica during the autumn migration. Its northern range in 
Scandinavia is about 61° N. lat.,andits eastern range in Russia 
is bounded by the 1 )nieper and the Governments of Tula and 
Orel. It breeds in Talestine, in North Africa, and is also 
found in ^Madeira, the Canaries, and the Cape Verd Islands. 
Hahits However much the Red Kite may have frequented 
the cities of England in former times, as its relations do many 
of the eastern cities at the present day, the species is now 
banished from the woods which it still frequented early in the 
century, and is now only to be found in the wilder parts of 
Great llritain. In many of the woodland districts of Northern 
Germany, however, it is still a common bird, and Mr. See- 
bohm gives an account of a bird-nesting excursion in Pome- 
rania, when he took several nests. 
The flight of the Red Kite is easy and graceful, and the 
forked tail of the bird renders it readily recognisable on the 
