a rural landscape in England, as they had done in the days when the poet Cowper wrote of them. “But an evil time soon came upon the species. It must have been always hated by the henwife, but the resources of civilization in the shape of the gun and the gin were denied to her. They were, however, employed with fatal zeal by the gamekeeper; for the kite, which had long afforded the supremest sport to the falconer, was now left friendless,”[1] and in a very few years it seems to have been exterminated throughout the greater part of England, certain woods in the Western Midlands, as well as Wales, excepted. In these latter a small remnant still exists; but the well-wishers of this beautiful species are naturally chary of giving information that might lead to its further persecution. In Scotland there is no reason to suppose that its numbers suffered much diminution until about 1835, or even later, when the systematic destruction of “vermin” on so many moors was begun. In Scotland, however, it is now as much restricted to certain districts as in England or Wales, and those districts it would be most inexpedient to indicate.
The kite is, according to its sex, from 25 to 27 in. in length, about one half of which is made up by its deeply forked tail, capable of great expansion, and therefore a powerful rudder, enabling the bird while soaring on its wide wings, more than 5 ft. in extent, to direct its circling course with scarcely a movement that is apparent to the spectator below. Its general colour is pale reddish-brown or cinnamon, the head being greyish-white, but almost each feather has the shaft dark. The tail feathers are broad, of a light red, barred with deep brown, and furnish the salmon fisher with one of the choicest materials of his “flies.” The nest, nearly always built in the crotch of a large tree, is formed of sticks intermixed with many strange substances collected as chance may offer, but among them rags[2] seem always to have a place. The eggs, three or four in number, are of a dull white, spotted and blotched with several shades of brown, and often lilac. It is especially mentioned by old authors that in Great Britain the kite was resident throughout the year; whereas on the Continent it is one of the most regular and marked migrants, stretching its wings towards the south in autumn, wintering in Africa, and returning in spring to the land of its birth.
There is a second European species, not distantly related, the Milvus migrans or M. ater of most authors,[3] smaller in size, with a general dull blackish-brown plumage and a less forked tail. In some districts this is much commoner than the red kite, and on one occasion it has appeared in England. Its habits are very like those of the species already described, but it seems to be more addicted to fishing. Nearly allied to this black kite are the M. aegyptius of Africa, the M. govinda (the common pariah kite of India),[4] the M. melanotis of Eastern Asia, and the M. affinis and M. isurus; the last is by some authors removed to another genus or sub-genus as Lophoictinia, and is peculiar to Australia, while M. affinis also occurs in Ceylon, Burma, and some of the Malay countries as well. All these may be considered true kites, while those next to be mentioned are more aberrant forms. First there is Elanus, the type of which is E. caeruleus, a beautiful little bird, the black-winged kite of English authors, that comes to the south of Europe from Africa, and has several congeners—E. axillaris and E. scriptus of Australia being most worthy of notice. An extreme development of this form is found in the African Nauclerus riocourii, as well as in Elanoides furcatus, the swallow-tailed kite, a widely-ranging bird in America, and remarkable for its length of wing and tail, which gives it a marvellous power of flight, and serves to explain the unquestionable fact of its having twice appeared in Great Britain. To Elanus also Ictinia, another American form, is allied, though perhaps more remotely, and it is represented by I. mississippiensis, the Mississippi kite, which is by some considered to be but the northern race of the Neotropical I. plumbea. Gampsonyx, Rostrhamus and Cymindis, all belonging to the Neotropical region, complete the series of forms that seem to compose the sub-family Milvinae, though there may be doubt about the last, and some systematists would thereto add the perns or honey-buzzards, Perninae. (A. N.)
KITE-FLYING, the art of sending up into the air, by means of
the wind, light frames of varying shapes covered with paper or
cloth (called kites, after the bird—in German Drache, dragon),
which are attached to long cords or wires held in the hand or
wound on a drum. When made in the common diamond form,
or triangular with a semicircular head, kites usually have a
pendulous tail appended for balancing purposes. The tradition
is that kites were invented by Archytas of Tarentum four
centuries before the Christian era, but they have been in use
among Asiatic peoples and savage tribes like the Maoris of New
Zealand from time immemorial. Kite-flying has always been
a national pastime of the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Tonkinese,
Annamese, Malays and East Indians. It is less popular among
the peoples of Europe. The origin of the sport, although obscure,
is usually ascribed to religion. With the Maoris it still retains
a distinctly religious character, and the ascent of the kite is
accompanied by a chant called the kite-song. The Koreans
attribute its origin to a general, who, hundreds of years ago,
inspirited his troops by sending up a kite with a lantern attached,
which was mistaken by his army for a new star and a token of
divine succour. Another Korean general is said to have been
the first to put the kite to mechanical uses by employing one
to span a stream with a cord, which was then fastened to a cable
and formed the nucleus of a bridge. In Korea, Japan and China,
and indeed throughout Eastern Asia, even the tradespeople may
be seen indulging in kite-flying while waiting for customers.
Chinese and Japanese kites are of many shapes, such as birds,
dragons, beasts and fishes. They vary in size, but are often as
much as 7 ft. in height or breadth, and are constructed of bamboo
strips covered with rice paper or very thin silk. In China the
ninth day of the ninth month is “Kites’ Day,” when men and
boys of all classes betake themselves to neighbouring eminences
and fly their kites. Kite-fighting is a feature of the pastime in
Eastern Asia. The cord near the kite is usually stiffened with a
mixture of glue and crushed glass or porcelain. The kite-flyer
manœuvres to get his kite to windward of that of his adversary,
then allows his cord to drift against his enemy’s, and by a sudden
jerk to cut it through and bring its kite to grief. The Malays
possess a large variety of kites, mostly without tails. The Sultan
of Johor sent to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 a
collection of fifteen different kinds. Asiatic musical kites bear
one or more perforated reeds or bamboos which emit a plaintive
sound that can be heard for great distances. The ignorant, believing that these kites frighten away evil spirits, often keep them flying all night over their houses.
- ↑ George, third earl of Orford, died in 1791, and Colonel Thornton, who with him had been the latest follower of this highest branch of the art of falconry, broke up his hawking establishment not many years after. There is no evidence that the pursuit of the kite was in England or any other country reserved to kings or privileged persons, but the taking of it was quite beyond the powers of the ordinary trained falcons, and in older days practically became limited to those of the sovereign. Hence the kite had attached to it, especially in France, the epithet of “royal,” which has still survived in the specific appellation of regalis applied to it by many ornithologists. The scandalous work of Sir Antony Weldon (Court and Character of King James, p. 104) bears witness to the excellence of the kite as a quarry in an amusing story of the “British Solomon,” whose master-falconer, Sir Thomas Monson, being determined to outdo the performance of the French king’s falconer, who, when sent to England to show sport, “could not kill one kite, ours being more magnanimous than the French kite,” at last succeeded, after an outlay of £1000, in getting a cast of hawks that took nine kites running—“never missed one.” On the strength of this, James was induced to witness a flight at Royston, “but the kite went to such a mountee as all the field lost sight of kite and hawke and all, and neither kite nor hawke were either seen or heard of to this present.”
- ↑ Thus justifying the advice of Shakespeare’s Autolycus (Winter’s Tale, iv. 3)—“When the kite builds, look to lesser linen”—very necessary in the case of the laundresses in olden time, when the bird commonly frequented their drying-grounds.
- ↑ Dr R. Bowdler Sharpe (Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. i. 322) calls it M. korschun, but the figure of S. G. Gmelin’s Accipiter Korschun, whence the name is taken, unquestionably represents the moor-buzzard (Circus aeruginosus)
- ↑ The Brahminy kite of India, Haliastur Indus, seems to be rather a fishing eagle.
