20 THE HAWKS AND OWLS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



SWALLOW-TAILED KITE. 



Elanoides forficatus. 

 [Plate 1— Two adults.] 



The Swallow- tailed Kite is an iuliabitaiit of the tropical and warmer 

 portions of America, extending north in the United States regularly to 

 Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Kentucky, and Virginia, and west to the 

 Great Plains. It has occurred casually in Pennsylvania, New York, 

 southern New England, and Ontario. In the United States the species 

 is most abundant in the States bordering the Gulf, but becomes more 

 and more uncommon toward the limits of its range at the north. Al- 

 though a few birds may occasionally remain in southern Louisiana 

 and Texas, and regularly in southern Florida, the majority cross our 

 southern border about the 1st of October to spend the winter in Cen- 

 tral and South America, and are not seen again until the 1st of the 

 following April. A most extraordinary exception to this usual migra- 

 tion is given by Dr. C. E. McChesney, who found the species near Fort 

 Sisseton, S. Dak., during nearly the whole winter of 1877-'78. (Bull. 

 Nutt. Ornith. Club, vol. iii, 1878, p. 147.) On November 17, 1881, 

 Mr. D. H. Talbot saw a flock of fifty or more between Jamestown and 

 Bismarck, K Dak. (Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, vol. vii, 1882, p. 59.) 



The principal food of this Kite is small snakes, lizards, frogs, and 

 various kinds of insects. It never molests small mammals or birds. 

 Among insects it is especially fond of wasp larvse, grasshoppers, and 

 dragon flies; and its power to change the direction of flight is most 

 markedly shown in capturing the latter insects, for in its eflorts to se- 

 cure them it is often necessary for it to turn almost completely over in 

 its evolutions. 



In Florida Dr. C. Hart Merriam often saw th^ese Kites dart down and 

 pick a wasp's nest from the under side of a leaf of some high palmetto 

 and fly oft" with it, devouring, while on the wing, the grubs it contained. 

 (Am. Nat., vol. Viii, 1874, p. 88.) 



Mr. H. Nehrling speaks of the birds' food in Texas as follows: "In 

 August and September the birds are often seen in cotton fields, where 

 they feed on cotton worms and other insects. They are particularly 

 fond of small snakes, such as Leptopliis, Rhinostoma coccinea, lizards 

 {AnoUus carolincnsis and Ameiva sex-lineata). I have never seen them 

 take a bird or a small quadruped." (Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, vol. vii, 

 1882, p. 173.) 



Audubon speaks of frequently seeing them with long slender snakes 

 hanging from their talons. The following is his account of an examina- 

 tion of two stomachs collected in Texas : " In the stomach [of one bird] are 

 six snakes, of a very slender form, and light-green color, one of them 22^ 

 inches in length, together with one large larva, 3 inches long, and two 

 coleopterous insects. Some of the snakes have been swallowed whole, 



