54 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ELANUS LEUCURUS MAJUSCULUS Bangs and Penard 

 NORTH AMERICAN WHITE-TAILED KITE 



HABITS 



The above name was applied to the North American bird by 

 Bangs and Penard (1920) to distinguish it from the smaller South 

 American race, to which the name leucurus was originally applied. 

 The northern bird is larger, with longer wing and tail and relatively 

 wider tail feathers. They say of the two ranges : "The small south- 

 ern form ranges from Argentina and Chile, northward to Vene- 

 zuela; the large northern form from California, Texas, Oklahoma, 

 South Carolina, and Florida, southward through Mexico to British 

 Honduras and Guatemala. There is thus a wide area in southern 

 Central America and northern South America between the ranges 

 of the two forms as outlined above, where the species apparently 

 does not occur at all." 



This gentle and attractive bird seems to have become exceedingly 

 rare, or to have been entirely extirpated, in the eastern portions of its 

 North American range. During my six seasons, or parts of seasons, 

 spent in various portions of Florida I have never seen this kite; 

 once a special trip was made to a section where our guide said they 

 had recently nested, but no sign of them was found. Donald J. 

 Nicholson tells me that he has not seen one there since 1910. "We 

 could not find it in southern Texas, and I have no recent records 

 of it there. In certain sections of California it seems to be holding- 

 its own, though exceedingly local in its distribution, and nowhere 

 universally abundant. I doubt if it ever was very abundant, al- 

 though Cooper (1870) referred to it as "quite abundant in the middle 

 districts of California, remaining in large numbers during winter 

 among the extensive tule marshes of the Sacramento and other 

 valleys", and Belding (1890) considered it "still a common resident" 

 about these marshes "in the centre of the State." But Belding quotes 

 Dr. B. W. Evermami, as calling it "a rare resident" in Ventura 

 County, as early as 1886; and he quotes W. E. Bryant as saying 

 that "it is still a very rare resident" in Alameda County. It seemed 

 to be the general opinion, at that time, that the white-tailed kite 

 was a disappearing species. As a result, it has since been rigidly 

 protected by law and exempted from collecting permits. 



Now comes more recent light on the subject, which is more en- 

 couraging. Dr. Gayle B. Pickwell (1930) has published the results 

 of his exhaustive study of the literature and his field work in the 

 Santa Clara Valley. Referring to past and present conditions in 

 that region, he says : 



