Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/115

 K I S K I T 103 who was dethroned by Aurangzeb in 1687. Meantime the English had, in 1622, established a small factory at Masulipatam, where they traded with varying fortune till 1750, when the French took possession of it. From 1759, when it was recaptured by Colonel Forde, with a force sent by Lord Clive from Calcutta, the power of the English in the greater part of the district was complete. In 1765 the entire administration was assumed by the Company; but the absolute right of sovereignty was not obtained until 1823. KISTNA, or KRISHNA, a large river of southern India, stretching almost across the entire peninsula from west to east. It rises near the Bombay sanatarium of Mahabalesh- vrar iu the Western Ghats, only about 40 miles from the Arabian Sea. Its source is held sacred, and is frequented by pilgrims in large numbers. From Mahdbaleshwar the Kistna runs southwards in a rapid course into the Nizam s Dominions, then turns to the east, and ultimately falls into the sea by two principal mouths. Along this part of the coast runs an extensive strip of land, which has been en tirely formed by the detritus washed down by the Kistna and Godavari. The river channel is throughout too rocky and the stream too rapid to allow even of small native craft. In utility for irrigation the Kistna is also inferior to its two sister streams, the Godavari and Kaveri (Cauvery). By far the greatest of its irrigation works is the Bezwara anicut, commenced in 1852. Bezwara is a small town at the entrance of the gorge by which the Kistna bursts through the Eastern Ghats, and immediately spreads over the alluvial plain. The channel there is 1300 yards wide. During the dry season the depth of water is barely 6 feet, but sometimes it rises to as much as 36 feet, the maximum flood discharge being calculated at 1,188,000 cubic feet per second. Of the two main canals connected with the dam, that on the left bank breaks into two branches, the one running 39 miles to Ellore, the other 49 miles to Masulipatam. The canal on the right bank proceeds nearly parallel to the river, and also sends off two prin cipal branches, to Nizampatam and Comamur. The total length of the main channel is 254 miles, and the total irrigated area 226,000 acres, yielding a revenue of 89,000. KIT-CAT-CLUB, a convivial association of Whig wits, painters, politicians, and men of letters, founded in the reign of James II. The name, according to Defoe, was derived from the keeper of the house in which the club met, Christopher Catt, a pastry cook in Shire Lane, which now no longer exists, but formerly ran parallel with Chancery Lane near Temple Bar. The pies of Christopher were the principal dish of the club, and the Spectator (No. 9) derives the name, not from the maker of the pies, but from the pies themselves, which were of a species generally known as &quot; kit-cats.&quot; According to another authority, the meeting place of the club was at the sign of the Cat and Fiddle in Gray s Inn Lane, kept by a person of the name of Christopher. The locale of the club was afterwards changed to the Fountain tavern in the Strand, and latterly to a room specially built for the purpose at Barn Elms, the residence of the secretary, Jacob Tonson. In summer the dub met_ at the Upper Flask, Hampstead Heath. The club consisted of thirty-nine noblemen and gentlemen, and included among other distinguished men the duke of Marl- borough, Lords Halifax and Somers, Sir Robert Walpole, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Steele, and Addison. The portraits of many of the members were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, himself also a member, of a uniform size, less than half length, which is known as the kit-cat size. The club was dissolved about 1720. KITE, 1 Anglo-Saxon Cyta, the Falco milvus of Linnreus and Milvus ictinus of modern ornithologists, once perhaps the most familiar bird-of-prey in Great Britain, and now one of the rarest. Three or four hundred years ago 1 Gltdc, cognate with glide, is also another English name. foreigners were struck with its abundance in the streets of London, and the evidence of two of them, one being the eminent naturalist Belon, has been already given (BiEDS, vol. iii. p. 736, note). It was doubtless the scavenger in ordinary of^that and other large towns (as a kindred species now is in Eastern lands), except where its place was taken by the Raven ; for Sir Thomas Browne (circa 1662) wrote of the latter at Norwich &quot; in good plentie about the citty which makes so few Kites to be seen hereabout.&quot; Wolley has well remarked of the modern Londoners that few &quot; who see the paper toys hovering over the parks in fine days of summer, have any idea that the bird from which they derive their name used to float all day in hot weather high over the heads of their ancestors.&quot; Even at the beginning of the present century the &quot; Kites that swim sublime In still repeated circles, screaming loud,&quot; formed a feature of many a rural landscape in England, as they had done in the days of Cowper. But an evil time soon came upon the species. It must have been always hated by the henwife, but the resources of civiliza tion in the shape of the gun and the gin were denied to her. They were, however, employed with fatal zeal by the gamekeeper ; for the Kite, which had long afforded the supremest sport to the falconer, was now left friendless, 2 and in a very few years it seems to have been exterminated throughout the greater part of England, certain woods in Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire and in the Western Midlands, as well as Wales, excepted. In these latter a small remnant still exists; but the well-wishers of this beautiful species are naturally chary of giving information that might lead to its further persecution. In Scotland there is no reason to suppose that its numbers suffered much diminution until about 1835 or even later, when the systematic destruction of &quot; vermin &quot; on so many moors was begun. In that kingdom, however, it is now as much restricted to certain districts as in England or Wales, and those districts it would be most inexpedient to in dicate. The Kite is, according to its sex, from 25 to 27 inches in length, about one half of which is made up by its deeply- forked tail, capable of great expansion, and therefore a powerful rudder, enabling the bird while soaring on its wide wings, more than 5 feet in extent, to direct its cir cling course with scarcely a movement that is apparent to the spectator below. Its general colour is pale reddish- brown or cinnamon, the head being greyish-white, but almost each feather has the shaft dark. The tail-feathers are broad, of a light red, barred with deep brown, and furnish the salmon-fisher with one of the choicest materials of his &quot;flies.&quot; The nest, nearly always built in the crotch 2 George, third earl of Orford, died in 1791, and Colonel Thornton, who with him had been the latest follower of this highest branch of the art of falconry, broke up his hawking establishment not many years after. There is no evidence that the pursuit of the Kite was in this or any other country reserved to kings or privileged persons, but the taking of it was quite beyond the powers of the ordinary trained Falcons, and in older days practically became limited to those of the sovereign. Hence the Kite had attached to it, especially in France, the epithet of &quot;royal,&quot; which has still survived in the specific appellation of regalis applied to it by many ornithologists. The scandalous work of Sir Antony Weldon (Court and Character of King James, p. 104) bears wit ness to the excellence of the Kite as a quarry in an amusing story of the &quot; British Solomon,&quot; whose Master-Falconer, Sir Thomas Monson, being determined to outdo the performance of the French king s falconer, who, when sent to England to show sport, &quot; could not kill one Kite, ours being more magnanimous then the French Kite,&quot; at last succeeded, after an outlay of 1000, in getting a cast of Hawks that took nine Kites running &quot; never missed one.&quot; On the strength of this, James was induced to witness a flight at Royston, &quot; but .the Kite went to such a mountee as all the field lost sight of Kite and Hawke and all, and neither Kite nor Hawke were either seen or heard of to this pre sent.&quot;