484 



General Notes. [October 



sion of a similar — if not the same— bird taken at the Charleston market in 

 August, 18S6. Mr. Wajne bought this specimen for me from the taxider- 

 mist who mounted it and who, unfortunately, is able to furnish no precise 

 information respecting the color of the soft parts in life, save that "the head 

 was red like a Turkey Buzzard's." In the dried specimen the bill is dull 

 straw-color, the bare skin of the head and neck yellowish-brown, the legs, 

 feet and claws pale brownish-orange. The head and neck are also tinged 

 with purple, but this is evidently the result of a clumsy attempt to repro- 

 duce the original color, for the dye has stained some of the feathers as 

 well as a portion of the tow protruding from the eye socket. In all other 

 respects — excepting that the bill is unusually depressed and the fifth pri- 

 marv on each wing white to its base — the bird agrees perfectly with 

 average specimens of the Black Vulture. That it is merely an abnormally 

 colored example of that species is sufficiently obvious, but its peculiarities 

 are certainly at once interesting and curious. — William Brewster, Cam- 

 bridge, Mass. 



The Swallow-tailed Kite in Rensselaer County, New York. — In my 

 collection is a specimen of an Elanoides forfieatus, mounted by Mr. Wil- 

 liam Gibson, of Lansingburg, N. Y. , who told me that he received the 

 dead bird Julv 17, 1SS6, from Mr. Griflin Haight, and that by dissecting 

 the bird he found it was a male. Its plumage is that of an adult, and is in 

 partly worn and moulting condition. Wing, 15.6 inches; tail, 11.6, 

 with fork, 5.6. 



Mr. Haight has a little house on a newly cleared acre, in the border of a 

 large wood-lot in the eastern part of the town of Pittstown, about sixteen 

 miles northeasterly from the city of Troy, and there breeds fancy fowls 

 which run about freely in the clearing and ajacent woods. He informs me 

 that Hawks trouble his fowls and carry oflf some chickens, and on the 

 morning of July 16 he staid,at home to clean out a few of the Hawks, and 

 had shot three, and just fired at another, when he was surprised to see, 

 flying up from the woods by the clearing, a Swallow-tailed Kite, such as 

 he had formerlv seen in South Cai-olina. The Kite flew away and was 

 gone about twentv minutes when it came down and lit on the dead 

 stubby top of a tree by the clearing. After a iew minutes, it flew up out 

 of sight, but in about thirty minutes came down again and sat on the 

 same dead tree-top for about seven minutes; it then flew up again out of 

 sight. About fifty minutes later, f-wo Kites came down together and lit on 

 the same dead tree stub. As he started toward them the largest Kite 

 flew away in a flash, and as he went nearer the other Kite darted up 

 overhead; he fired and killed it, and sent the dead bird to Mr. Gibson to 

 be mounted. 



Mr. Haight informs me that he has since seen one or more of the Kites 

 around a pond in a swamp of about four hundred acres, within two miles 

 of his house ; once on July 29, and several times on August 9. He also 

 saw at a distance, on dead ash trees standing in the swamp, three or four 

 birds having the appearance and flight of Kites, and they alighted like 



