TWENTIETH Annual Meeting. 11 



ICTINIA MISSISSIPPIENSIS AND .EGIALITIS NIVOSA, NESTING IN 

 SOUTH-CENTEAL KANSAS. 



BY N. S. GOSS. 



While collecting in the State, I found, May 9th, 1887, quite a number of the Mis- 

 sissippi Kites sailing over and into the timber skirting the Medicine river, near 

 Sun City, Barber county, and from their actions knew that they were mating, and 

 upon their breeding-grounds — a lucky find, one worth following up. On the 11th 

 I noticed several of the birds with sticks in their bills, (green twigs in leaf,) flying 

 aimlessly about, as if undecided where to place them, keeping hidden within the 

 trees as much as possible, dropping the sticks when from fright or other cause they 

 rose much above the tree-tops. I however succeeded in tracing one of the birds to 

 an old nest in the forks of a cottonwood. Having thus located the birds, and know- 

 ing it must be some time before they would begin to lay, I left for the salt plains on 

 the Cimmarron river in southwestern Comanche county, and in the Indian Terri- 

 tory, where I found the Snowy Plover quite abundant. ( See The Auk, vol. 3, No. 3, 

 p. 409, in regard to finding the birds nesting in the same vicinity, last season.) 

 I returned to the Kites on the 16th, and remained watching the birds until the morn- 

 ing of the 22d, at which time the nests found, seven in number, appeared to be com- 

 pleted, and I saw a pair of the birds in the act of copulation. A business matter 

 called me home, and I hired the man with whom I stopped to climb the trees on the 

 28th for the eggs, but a hail-storm on the 25th injured the nests badly, and in one 

 case beat the nest out of the tree. On the 31st he collected four sets of two eggs 

 each, and one with only one egg. It being a hard tree to climb, he decided to take 

 the egg rather than to wait to see if the bird would lay more. Not hearing from 

 him, I returned to the grounds June 10th, and put in the day examining the nests, 

 «tc., collecting two more sets of two eggs each, one of the sets nearly ready to hatch, 

 but with care was able to save it. The eggs are all white, or rather, bluish white, 

 without markings, or shell stains. It having rained nearly every day since the com- 

 mencement of the month, the last two sets collected are somewhat soiled and stained 

 by the wet leaves in the nests. The eggs measured by sets as follows, viz.: First, 

 1.55x1.33, 1.52x1.36; second, 1.76x1.48, 1.65x1.35; third, 1.70x1.39, 1.56x1.35; fourth, 1.70 

 xl.37, 1.68x1.30; fifth, 1.75x1.30; sixth, 1..54xl.31, 1.45x1.24; seventh, 1.70x1.38, 1.68x 

 1.43. 



The old nests had a few leaves for lining in addition to the leaves attached to the 

 twigs used in repairing the same, but the new ones appeared to be without addi- 

 tional leaves. They were all built either in the forks from the main body, or in the 

 forks of the larger limbs of the cottonwood and elm trees, and were at least from ten 

 to a hundred rods apart, were not bulky, and when old would be taken for the nests 

 of the common crow. They ranged in height from twenty-five to fifty feet from the 

 ground. 



FEEDING HABITS OF PELECANUS EEYTHRORHYNCHOS. 



BY N. S. GOSS. 



Naturalists who have not seen the White Pelicans upon their feeding-grounds 

 have without doubt read Audubon's interesting description of the manner in which 

 the birds unite and drive the fishes into shallow water where they can catch them, 

 \vhich they cannot well do in in deep water, as the flesh side of their skins is honey- 



