Captain B. F. S. Baden-Powell, of the Scots Guards, in June 1894 constructed, at Pirbright Camp, a huge kite 36 ft. high, with which he successfully lifted a man on different occasions. He afterwards improved the contrivance, using five or six smaller kites attached together in preference to one large one. With this arrangement he frequently ascended as high as 100 ft. The kites were hexagonal, being 12 ft. high and 12 ft. across. The apparatus, which could be packed in a few minutes into a simple roll, weighed in all about 1 cwt. This appliance was proved to be capable of raising a man even during a dead calm, the retaining line being fixed to a wagon and towed along. Lieut. H. D. Wise made some trials in America in 1897 with some large kites of the Hargrave pattern (Hargrave having previously himself ascended in Australia), and succeeded in lifting a man 40 ft. above the ground. In the Russian army a military kite apparatus has also been tried, and was in evidence at the manœuvres in 1898. Experiments have also been carried out by most of the European powers.
(B. F. S. B.-P.)
KIT-FOX (Canis [Vulpes] velox), a small fox, from north-western America, measuring less than a yard in length, with a tail of nearly a third this length. There is a good deal of variation in the colour of the fur, the prevailing tint being grey. A specimen in the Zoological Gardens of London had the back and tail dark grey, the tail tipped with black, and a rufous wash on the cheeks, shoulders, flanks and outer surface of the limbs, with the under surface white. The specific name was given on account of the extraordinary swiftness of the animal. (See [Carnivora].)
KITTO, JOHN (1804-1854), English biblical scholar, was the son of a mason at Plymouth, where he was born on the 4th of December 1804. An accident brought on deafness, and in November 1819 he was sent to the workhouse, where he was employed in making list shoes. In 1823 a fund was raised on his behalf, and he was sent to board with the clerk of the guardians, having his time at his own disposal, and the privilege of making use of a public library. After preparing a small volume of miscellanies, which was published by subscription, he studied dentistry with Anthony Norris Groves in Exeter. In 1825 he obtained congenial employment in the printing office of the Church Missionary Society at Islington, and in 1827 was transferred to the same society’s establishment at Malta. There he remained for eighteen months, but shortly after his return to England he accompanied Groves and other friends on a private missionary enterprise to Bagdad, where he obtained personal knowledge of Oriental life and habits which he afterwards applied with tact and skill in the illustration of biblical scenes and incidents. Plague broke out, the missionary establishment was broken up, and in 1832 Kitto returned to England. On arriving in London he was engaged in the preparation of various serial publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the most important of which were the Pictorial History of Palestine and the Pictorial Bible. The Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, edited under his superintendence, appeared in two volumes in 1843-1845 and passed through three editions. His Daily Bible Illustrations (8 vols. 1849-1853) received an appreciation which is not yet extinct. In 1850 he received an annuity of £100 from the civil list. In August 1854 he went to Germany for the waters of Cannstatt on the Neckar, where on the 25th of November he died.
See Kitto’s own work, The Lost Senses (1845); J. E. Ryland’s Memoirs of Kitto (1856); and John Eadie’s Life of Kitto (1857).
KITTUR, a village of British India, in the Belgaum district of Bombay; pop. (1901), 4922. It contains a ruined fort, formerly the residence of a Mahratta chief. In connexion with a disputed succession to this chiefship in 1824, St John Thackeray, an uncle of the novelist, was killed when approaching the fort under a flag of truce; and a nephew of Sir Thomas Munro, governor of Madras, fell subsequently when the fort was stormed.