166 Birds of Colorado 



Mississippi Kite. Ictinia mississippiensis. 



A.O.U. Checklist no 329— Colorado Record — Cooke 97, pp. 73, 160. 



Description. — Male — Head, neck, secondaries and under-parts greyish- 

 white, rest of the upper-parts bluish-slate, becoming black on the 

 primaries and tail ; wing-quills with a narrow indistinct stripe of 

 chestnut-rufous on the outer webs and larger spots of the same on the 

 inner ; bases of the feathers of the head, neck and under-parts white, 

 and often showing through ; concealed white spots on the scapulars ; 

 iris lake-red ; bill, cere and claws black ; feet red. Length 14-15 ; 

 wing 11-50; tail 6-60; culmen -90; tarsus 1-35. 



The female is larger — wing 11-75; it has the head and secondaries 

 darker, and less chestnut -rufous on the primaries. An immature bird 

 has the head streaked black and white, whiter on the throat ; the back, 

 wings and tail with tawny or white edges and the lower-parts whitish, 

 heavily streaked with rusty-rxifous ; iris and feet brownish. 



Distribution. — The south-eastern United States from southern Illinois 

 and South CaroUna to Texas, Mexico and Guatemala ; not uncommon 

 in southern Kansas. 



This Kite is a straggler in Colorado. Breninger informed Cooke 

 that an example taken near Trinidad was preserved in Denver, and 

 Aiken reports that he once observed an example near Colorado Springs. 



Genus CIRCUS. 



Face rather Owl-like, surrounded by an incomplete ruff ; bill strong, 

 beset by bristles ; the edge of the upper mandible lobed, but hardly 

 toothed ; nostrils oval ; wings long, the outer primary shorter than 

 the fourth, the seventh and eighth the longest ; the outer throe to 

 five primaries emarginate on the inner web ; tail long about f of wing, 

 almost even ; legs long, tarsus clearly exceeding the middle toe and 

 claw, but shorter than the tibia, with scutes before and behind. 



A widely spread genus found all over the world, with one species 

 only in the United States. 



Marsh- Hawk. Circus hudsonius. 



A.O.U. CheckUst no 331— Colorado Records— Allen 72, pp. 152, 159 ; 

 Tresz 81, p. 188 ; Drew 81, p. 141 ; 85, p. 17 ; Allen & Brewster 83, 

 p. 197 ; Beckham 97, p. 121 ; Morrison 89, p. 7 ; Lowe 94, p. 267 ; 

 Cooke 97, pp. 73, 204 ; Henderson 03, p. 235 ; 09, p. 229 ; Warren 

 06, p. 20; 08, p. 20; 09, p. 14 ; Giknan 07, p. 153 ; Rockwell 08, p. 161. 



Description— Male — Above silvery or bluish-ash, seldom pure, nearly 

 always obscvu-ed by dusky and traces here and there of the juvenal 

 tawny ; upper tail-coverts white, wing-quills chiefly dusky with white 

 bases ; tail banded more or less distinctly with dusky, the terminal 

 one most distinct ; below, the throat and breast shghtly ashy. 



