PRINCETON 



95 



ularly slender and curved. I found the everglade 

 kite was a very plentiful bird at Panasofkee 

 Lake, discovered that it was a migrant and grega- 

 rious in its habits, so that frequently a dozen or 

 more were seen together. The name "snail- 

 hawk " is of local origin, and has to do with the 

 habits of the bird. At this point their food con- 

 sisted almost entirely of a fresh-water snail of 

 large size which was common in the shallower 

 regions of the lake, vvhere the water is not more 

 than a foot or eighteen inches deep. Over such 

 areas these birds hunted very much as the marsh- 

 hawk does over the fields. Perceiving a snail, 

 they dove, caught it, and retired with it to some 

 favorite branch near by, when the slender hooked 

 beaks and claws were used to extract the inhabit- 

 ant from its shell. This was done with so much 

 precision and care that a shell was seldom defaced 

 or the operculum broken. One had only to look 

 at the great mounds of these snail-shells under the 

 favorite lighting places of these hawks to be aware 

 of what multitudes inhabited the lake and what 

 numbers the hawks destroyed. The everglade 

 kite bred commonly at points on the lake, and 

 had just completed its nest-making the end of 

 March. Though a fine series of the birds had 

 been collected, some forty in all, their numbers 

 seemed in no way diminished. 



Now, the curious point in relation to the two 



