. British birds with their nests and eggs . nape; the tail is greyish brown, barred with darker brown; theunder parts are rufous, barred with darker rufous. In very old birds the trans-verse bars become much narrower. The beak is blue; cere, legs, and toes yellow;irides orange; claws black. The adult female has the upper parts brown, with awhite nape spot; the under parts are greyish white, barred with brown. She isvery much larger than her mate. The young males are brownish like the female,but with some rufous edgings to the feathers of the back; the tail is reddishbrown, especially at the ba
. British birds with their nests and eggs . nape; the tail is greyish brown, barred with darker brown; theunder parts are rufous, barred with darker rufous. In very old birds the trans-verse bars become much narrower. The beak is blue; cere, legs, and toes yellow;irides orange; claws black. The adult female has the upper parts brown, with awhite nape spot; the under parts are greyish white, barred with brown. She isvery much larger than her mate. The young males are brownish like the female,but with some rufous edgings to the feathers of the back; the tail is reddishbrown, especially at the base ; the dark markings on the under parts are in spadeshaped blotches. Nestlings are at first covered with white down. Very old femalesassume the plumage of the male. There are numerous local races of the Sparrow-Hawk ; some authors have considered the variations in the shading of the plumageand in size sufficient to justify the creation of a number of subspecies. The length of the male is twelve inches, that of the female fifteen Kite i i The Kite, 27 Family—FALCONID/E. Genus—MH. VUS. The Kites. THERE are, Dresser states, six representatives of the Genus Milvus, allbelonging to the Old World, of which one was fonnerly a characteristicBritish bird, but is now all but lost to our Ornis, owing to persecution. Oneother, the Black Kite, has been only once obtained as a straggler in this Kites are lovers of the woodlands, of graceful soaring flight, the} frequentthe neighbourhood of rivers, and are partial to inhabited districts, commonl}venturing into towns where they are iiseful scavengers. They build in loft} trees,and in cliffs, using all manner of strange articles for the lining of their wings are long, and the tail is long and forked. Family—FA L CONID^. Kite. Milvus idinus, Savigny. THE present centur} has witnessed the almost complete extermination of theRed Kite in the British Isles, formerh* one of our most characteristic birdsthat m
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1896
