Of the habits of the Black Kite (Milvus atra), Mr. Tristram gives an admirable description. "The habits of the bird bear out the allusion in Isa. xxxiv. 15, for it is, excepting during the winter three months, so numerous everywhere in Palestine as to be almost gregarious. It returns about the beginning of March, and scatters itself over the whole country, preferring especially the neighbourhood of valleys, where it is a welcome and unmolested guest. It does not appear to attack the poultry, among whom it may often be seen feeding on garbage. It is very sociable, and the slaughter of a sheep at one of the tents will soon attract a large party of black kites, which swoop down regardless of man and guns, and enjoy a noisy scramble for the refuse, chasing each other in a laughable fashion, and sometimes enabling the wily raven to steal off with the coveted morsel during their contentions. It is the butt of all the smaller scavengers, and is evidently most unpopular with the crows and daws, and even rollers, who enjoy the amusement of teasing it in their tumbling flight, which is a manœuvre most perplexing to the kite."
The same writer proceeds to mention that the Black Kite, unlike the red species, is very careless about the position of its nest, and never even attempts to conceal it, sometimes building it in a tree, sometimes on a rock-ledge, and sometimes in a bush growing on the rocks. It seems indeed desirous of making the nest as conspicuous as possible, and hangs it all over with bits of cloth, strips of bark, wings of birds, and even the cast skins of serpents.
Another species (Milvus Ægyptiacus) is sometimes called the Black Kite from the dark hue of its plumage, but ought rather to retain the title of Egyptian Kite. Unlike the black kite, this bird is a great thief, and makes as much havoc among poultry as the red kite. It is also a robber of other birds, and if it should happen to see a weaker bird with food, it is sure to attack and rob it. Like the black kite, it is fond of the society of man, and haunts the villages in great numbers, for the purpose of eating the offal, which in Oriental towns is simply flung into the streets to be devoured by the dogs, vultures, kites, and other scavengers, without whom no village would be habitable for a month.
Whether the word raah, which is translated as Glede in Deut. xiv. 13, among the list of birds which may not be eaten, is one of these species of Kite, or a bird of a different group, is a very doubtful point. This is the only passage in which the word occurs, and we have but small grounds for definitely identifying it with any one species. The Hebrew Bible retains the word Glede, but affixes a mark of doubt to it, and several commentators are of opinion that the word is a wrong reading of dayah, which occurs in the parallel passage in Lev. xi. 14. The reading of the Septuagint follows this interpretation, and renders it as Vulture in both cases. Buxtorf translates the word raah as Rook, but suggests that dayah is the correct reading.
Accepting, however, the word raah, we shall find that it is derived from a root which signifies sight or vision, especially of some particular object, so that a piercing sight would therefore be the chief characteristic of the bird, which, as we know, is one of the attributes of the Kites, together with other birds of prey, so that it evidently must be classed among the group with which we are now concerned. It has been suggested that, granting the raah to be a species distinct from the dayah, it is a collective term for the larger falcons and buzzards, several species of which inhabit Palestine, and are not distinctly mentioned in the Bible.
Several species of buzzard inhabit the Holy Land, and there is no particular reason why they should be mentioned except by a collective name. Some of the buzzards are very large birds, and though their wings are short when compared with those of the vultures and eagles, the flight of the bird is both powerful and graceful. It is not, however, remarkable for swiftness, and never was employed, like the falcon, in catching other birds, being reckoned as one of the useless and cowardly birds of prey. In consonance with this opinion, to compare a man to a buzzard was thought a most cutting insult.
THE PEREGRINE FALCON, OR GLEDE OF SCRIPTURE.