Identifier: royalnaturalhist47lyde (find matches)
Title: The royal natural history
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Lydekker, Richard, 1849-1915 Sclater, Philip Lutley, 1829-1913 Frostick, W. B., former owner. DSI Brooks, W. T., former owner. DSI
Subjects: Zoology Natural history
Publisher: London and New York : Frederick Warne & Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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nder-parts rufous-brownwith a dark median streak to each feather. The beak is horn-colour, and the cereand iris, together with the legs and feet, yellow, the claws being black. The kiteis distributed over the greater part of Europe, breeding as far north as the southof Scandinavia, and becoming gradually more rare in the eastern districts. Inwinter it ranges to Lower Egypt, Algeria, and Palestine. The nest is built eitherin the fork of a tree or, more rarely, in a cleft of rock; and the three or four eggs KITES. 199 are laid in April or May. Nothing comes amiss to a kite when building, and,while the main framework of the nest is formed of sticks, these are supplementedby all kinds of rubbish, such as bones, fragments of leather, and rags, the latterforming the lining. When their nest is attacked, the parent birds make a vigorousresistance. As we have already had occasion to notice, the kite was a favouritequarry in hawking, showing excellent sport by the manner in which it endeavoured
Text Appearing After Image:
BLACK KITE AXD RED KITE (i Uat. size). to baffle the falccm in its efforts to gain the advantage of position. More rarely thekite itself was trained to fly at the smaller kinds of birds. The black or migratory kite (il/. migrans), represented in the upperfigure of our illustration, is a rather smaller bird than the last, from whichit may be distinguished by its dark brown tail, faintly barred with a still deepertint, the general dark brown hue of the plumage of the upper - parts, save onthe head and throat, where the feathers are whitish with dark stripes. Itis further characterised by the black beak, and the absence of any distinct patch 2 00 DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY. of white at the base of the primary quills. This kite is distributed over the wholeof Africa and Madagascar, from whence it migrates into Southern and WesternEurope, while it occasionally reaches Scandinavia, and has been taken in England.Mr. H. Saunders observes that this kite appears on the Swiss lakes and riversabout th

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