THELARGE BLUE SHERARDKITE.
This kind of Kite frequents forests, heaths, and other lonesome places, but especially bogs and marshy grounds, where they destroy great numbers of snipes, to which they are the worst enemy of any bird of prey of the hawk kind; they beat all over the bog with the greatest regularity and exactness, till they find them lying: for the nature of the snipe is, if they perceive their enemy in the pursuit, they lie as close to the ground as possible, when the Kite pounces upon them directly and takes them: I have observed one of these vermin beatingat one end of a bog or marshy piece of ground; and at the other end I have stooped down till he has come up close to the place where I was, he looking stedfastly down for his prey, regardless of any thing else; and when he came near enough I have shot him; sometimes they will have a beat cross a warren, where I have caught them in traps, baited with what is termed a stall, which is a young rabbit-skin stuffed.
These vermin are very remarkable for one particular circumstance, for at any time when you observe any of them come along in the morning, you will be certain of seeing them return the same way back again in the afternoon, and three or four succeeding mornings they will have the same beat, if they are not frightened or disturbed; whenever, therefore, you see one go along in the morning, get a trap set ready against his return, baited with a rabbit’s skin stuffed and put on the bridge of the trap, as before directed, but remember to cover the trapnicely with moss; if you set it in a green sward, then cover it with grass, and in this manner I have often taken them; I have likewise caught them by means of two steel traps, set in the same manner as for the buzzard; but always mind when you set traps in this manner, to fasten down the bait between them with a peg, otherwise they will frequently take it away, and not strike the trap; but when the bait is fixed they cannot get it away, but are constrained to stop, when by hopping and picking about, they spring the trap and are caught.