I love the feathered tribe entire, though it is 



Least for you, 

 Thou Httle outlaw ; not for what you are, but 



What you do. 



The Everglade Kite {Rostrhamus sociaUUs) 

 By Gerard Alan Abbott 



Length: About 18 inches. 



The Everglade Kite, or Snail Hawk, as it is sometimes called, has a very 

 small range within the borders of the United States, where it is limited to the 

 swamps and marshes of southern Florida. It also frequents eastern Mexico, 

 Central America, Cuba, and the eastern portion of South America as far south- 

 ward as the Argentine Republic. 



Its habits are very interesting. Peaceable and sociable at all times, other 

 birds do not fear them. 



An authority, writing of these birds in Florida, says : "Their favorite 

 nesting sites are swamps overgrown with low willow bushes, the nests usually 

 being placed about four feet from the ground. They frequent the borders of 

 open ponds and feed their young entirely on snails. According to my obser- 

 vations, the female does not assist in the building of the nest. I have watched 

 these birds for hours. She sits in the immediate vicinity of the nest and watches 

 while the male builds it. The male will bring a few twigs and alternate this 

 work at the same time by supplying his mate with snails until the structure is 

 completed. They feed and care for their young longer than any other birds I 

 know of, until you can scarcely distinguish them from the adults." 



The nest is a flat structure, the cavity being rarely more than two or three 

 inches in depth, and the whole structure is about twelve or sixteen inches in 

 diameter and about one-half as high. It is usually placed in low shrubs or 

 fastened to the rank growth of saw grass, sufficiently low to be secure from 

 observation. The materials used in its construction are generally dry twigs 

 and sticks loosely woven together. The cavity may be bare or lined with small 

 vines, leaves, or dry saw grass. 



"Its food, as far as known, consists exclusively of fresh-water univalve 

 mollusks, which it finds among the water plants at the edges of shallow lakes 

 and rivers or the overflowed portions of the Everglades." 



802 



