. Notes on the birds of Northamptonshire and neighbourhood . onothing to relate, for the obvious reason that thespecies has been all but extinct in our district fornearly fifty years, and is now a rare biid in allparts of Great Britain. My own acquaintance Aviththe Kite in Northamptonshire is soon told. I canjust remember, during a very severe frost with snowupon the ground, being taken out in front of thehouse to look at three Kites sailing at no greatheight over the lawn; this must have been in thewinter of 1837-38. On another occasion I saw aKite close to Milton, Peterborough, perhaps somef
. Notes on the birds of Northamptonshire and neighbourhood . onothing to relate, for the obvious reason that thespecies has been all but extinct in our district fornearly fifty years, and is now a rare biid in allparts of Great Britain. My own acquaintance Aviththe Kite in Northamptonshire is soon told. I canjust remember, during a very severe frost with snowupon the ground, being taken out in front of thehouse to look at three Kites sailing at no greatheight over the lawn; this must have been in thewinter of 1837-38. On another occasion I saw aKite close to Milton, Peterborough, perhaps somefoiu- or five vears later than the above instance : and AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. in 1843 I well recollect one of our gamekeepersbringing in a fine Kite which he had shot from hiscottage door near Aldwincle. In the last-named andfollowing years Kites nests were taken in LadyWood and Great Wadenhoe Wood; in the latterinstance by the late Mr. Norwood, of Salisbury, whogave me this information, and in 1840 or 1841 twoyoung Kites were taken from a nest in a very large. Soaring Kite. elm near Barnwell village, and kept for many yearsin the rectory garden by the late Rev. J. Boultbee,in whose possession I well remember seeing them,and to w^hose daughter I am indebted for the aboveparticulars ; these birds made a nest in the gardenjust named, and laid two eggs, one of which wasgiven to me by Mr, Boultbee. 32 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE I have numerous records of the former abundanceof the Kite in this division of our county, and espe-cially in the great woods of Huntingdonshire—Monks Wood, Holme Wood, and Alconbury of my correspondents seems to think that thedrainage of the fens and of Whittlesea Mere hassomething to do with the disappearance of the Kite,but I cannot agree in this view, as the bird wasalready exceedingly rare at the time of the drainageof the mere, nor are meres or swampy ground espe-cially attractive to it. I have also heard it statedthat the Kites were extermin
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