THE 



WILSON BULLETIN 



NO. 65. 



A QUARTERIvY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 



VOL. XX DECEMBER, 1908. NO. 4 



OLD SERIES VOL. XX. NEW SERIES VOL. XV. 



NOTES ON THE NEST AND EGGS OF THE MISSIS- 

 SIPPI KITE {Ictinia mississippiensis.) 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT. 



It is interesting to note sometimes how in the case of com- 

 mon birds the descriptions left us by the older ornithologists 

 as compared with the more modern writers on the subject 

 vary in the matter of detail. 



There is a good example of this to be found in the case of 

 the Mississippi Kite, a bird known to naturalists in this country 

 for many years. 



Wilson left us no account either of the nest or the eggs of 

 this species, though he promises both will be forth-coming in 

 a future volume of his work. We find in T. M. Brewer's edi- 

 tion of Wilson's American Ornithology (1852), a Synopsis of 

 the Birds of North America, where this Kite is listed as Falco 

 plumber Gmel. (Subgenus Ictinia), and it is said of it that it 

 "Nests in high trees. Eggs, three, light green, blotched with 

 deep chocolate brown, globular." (p. 685.) By "globular" it 

 is fair to presume that either Brewer or iVudubon meant round, 

 or else subglobular or nearly globular would have been stated. 



In fact in his B'vrds of America the latter ornithologist does 

 slightly modify this description when describing the eggs of 

 this bird when he says that they number "two or three, almost 

 globular, of a light greenish tint, blotched thickly over with 

 deep chocolate brown and black." 



