1S85.] Goss on the Swallow- tailed and Mississippi Kites 



OBSERVATIONS ON ELANOIDES FORF1CATUS 

 AND ICTINIA SUBC^RULEA IN KANSAS. 



The Swallow-tailed Kite is an irregular summer resident along 

 the timbered streams, being abundant some seasons and rare 

 others. It arrives earl)' in May, and devotes the first few days to 

 courtship and mating, the next to selecting nesting places, which 

 I have so far found to be in the small branches near the tops ot 

 the tallest trees. By the last of the month the nests are com- 

 pleted, and as the trees by that time are in full leaf they are 

 largely hidden from view. Tliev are made of sticks loosely in- 

 terwoven and lined sparingly with the soft, ribbon-like strippings 

 from the inner bark of old. decaying or dead cotton wood trees. 

 The eggs are oval ; the ground-color is cream white, irregularly 

 spotted and blotched with dark reddish brown, running largely 

 together towards the small end. The measurements of three are 

 1.84 X 1.48, 1.87 X 1.50, 1.90 X 1-50. 



As the nests are hard to reach, I have been able to examine 

 but four. Three of these had only one egg in each ; in the other 

 there were two eggs, nearly ready to hatch, and the shell of one 

 at the foot of the tree ; but I have it on good authority that in the 

 near vicinity a nest with four, and another with six, eggs have 

 been found. The males assist in building the nest, alternate in 

 sitting and in feeding the young, and, in fact, appear as attentive 

 as the females.* 



April 27. 1876 (the earliest arrival noticed), a pair put in an 

 appearance at Neosho Falls, and as they continued to circle in 

 their graceful flights over the same grounds — the edge of the 

 prairie and timber on the Neosho River — I became satisfied that 

 their nesting places would be selected within the circle, and I 

 devoted my leisure moments to watching their movements. On 

 the 5th of May they were joined by another pair, and later in the 

 day, to my great surprise and joy, two pairs of Mississippi Kites 



* I saw a pair of these birds once in the act of copulation. They were sitting on a 

 small, horizontal limb close together and facing each other, when, quick as a flash, the 

 female turned or backed under the limb, the male meeting her from the top. 



