74 FALCONIDE. 



insects called musquito hawks, and performing the most 

 singular evolutions that can be conceived, using their tail 

 with an elegance of motion peculiar to themselves. Their 

 principal food, however, is large grasshoppers, grass-cater- 

 pillars, small snakes, lizards, and frogs. They sweep close 

 over the fields, sometimes seeming to alight for a moment 

 to secure a snake, and holding it fast by the neck, carry 

 it off, and devour it in the air. When searching for 

 grasshoppers and caterpillars, it is not difficult to approach 

 them under cover of a fence or tree. When one is then 

 killed and falls to the ground, the whole flock comes over 

 the dead bird, as if intent upon carrying it off. An excellent 

 opportunity is thus afforded of shooting as many as may 

 be wanted, and I have killed several of these Hawks in this 

 manner, firing as fast as I could load my gun."* 



" The Swallow-tailed Hawk pairs immediately after its 

 arrival in the southern states ; and as its courtships take 

 place on the wing, its motions are then more beautiful than 

 ever. The nest is usually placed on the top branches of 

 the tallest oak or pine tree, situated on the margin of a 

 stream or pond. It resembles that of a Carrion Crow ex- 

 ternally, being formed of dry sticks, intermixed with Spanish 

 moss, and is lined with coarse grasses and a few feathers. 

 The eggs are from four to six, of a greenish white colour, 

 with a few irregular blotches of dark brown at the larger end. 

 The male and the female sit alternately, the one feeding 

 the other. — The young are at first covered with buff-coloured 

 down. Their next covering exhibits the pure white and 

 black of the old birds, but without any of the glossy purplish 

 tints of the latter. The tail, which at first is but slightly fork- 

 ed, becomes more so in a few weeks, and at the approach of 



* Mr. Nuttall says, that the Swallow-tailed Kites seize upon the nests of 

 locusts and wasps, and, like the Honey-Buzzard, devour both the insects and 

 their larva;. 



