198 
DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY. 
to soar, like the martins, during a high wind, and will spend hours in this sport, 
rising and falling alternately; and at times, seeming to abandon itself to the fury of 
the gale, is blown away like thistle-down, until, suddenly recovering itself, it shoots 
back to its original position. Where there are tall poplar-trees, these birds amuse 
themselves by perching on the topmost slender twigs, balancing themselves with 
outspread wings, each bird on a separate tree, until the tree-tops are swept by 
the wind from under them, when they often remain poised almost motionless in 
the air until the twigs return to their feet.” 
Although the term kite is now commonly applied to many 
True Kites 0 . . »/ 11 «/ 
members of the present family, it should properly be restricted to 
the species of the genus Milvus, and belongs, strictly speaking, only to the common 
or red kite (M. ictinus), also known in England as the glead. In Britain the 
kite is one of those species which has suffered most severely from incessant 
persecution, having gradually diminished in numbers from the time of Shake¬ 
speare, when these birds were to be seen in numbers on the Thames in London, 
till the present day, when it is practically extinct in the southern and midland 
counties, although still lingering in the west and north. The kites belong to a 
group of five genera, easily distinguished from the foregoing members of the 
subfamily by their more or less deeply-forked tails, in which the outermost 
feathers are the longest. In the kites the forking of the tail is of moderate 
depth, and approximately equal in length to the interval between the tips of 
the primary and secondary quills, while the head is devoid of a crest. The wings 
are long, reaching nearly to the end of the tail, with the fourth or the third and 
fourth quills the longest, the beak slightly festooned, and the metatarsus and toes 
short, with claws of moderate length. There are some half-dozen species, exclusively 
confined to the Old World, where they range over all the continents and Australia. 
Kites are the scavengers of the hawk family, feeding chiefly on refuse and garbage, 
although also consuming insects, reptiles, and such young or feeble birds or mammals 
as they can capture. Spending most of their time on the wing, they soar gracefully 
in large, sweeping circles, and form a striking feature in the bird-life of all eastern 
cities. Their nests may be built either in trees, buildings, or on rocks. 
The common or red kite of Europe, represented in the lower figure of our 
illustration, attains a length of about 24 inches, and differs from all its con¬ 
geners by its rufous tail and the general rufous tinge of the entire plumage. In 
old males the head and throat are whitish with brown streaks, the upper-parts 
having the feathers dark brown in the middle with rufous edgings, tending to 
buff' on the extreme margins, more especially in the wing-coverts. The primary 
quills and primary coverts are black, with some white at the base of their 
inner webs; the upper tail-coverts rufous, the tail-feathers reddish brown, with 
their inner webs barred with dark brown; and the under-parts rufous-brown 
with a dark median streak to each feather. The beak is horn-colour, and the cere 
and iris, together with the legs and feet, yellow, the claws being black. The kite 
is distributed over the greater part of Europe, breeding as far north as the south 
of Scandinavia, and becoming gradually more rare in the eastern districts. In 
winter it ranges to Lower Egypt, Algeria, and Palestine. The nest is built either 
in the fork of a tree or, more rarely, in a cleft of rock; and the three or four eggs 
