Kites, Hawks, Eagles, etc. 



pause. In this way too the bird takes a drink. Because they 

 are so little used for walking, for one almost never sees this kite 

 on the ground, its legs are very short and all but invisible. 



Most abundant in the western division of the Gulf states and 

 above the great plains, the numbers of this bird let it be 

 recorded nowhere seem to have diminished, since it feeds almost 

 exclusively on snakes, lizards, and the larger insects such as 

 locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers, and never on other birds. 

 Even, the dullest mind recognizes it as harmless and beneficent. 

 Naturally a bird so little persecuted shows no great fear of man. 

 Its shrill, penetrating wee-wee-wee has been uttered in the very 

 ears of a picnic party within sight of a huge hotel in Minnesota. 



But when the nesting season arrives, these kites seek out 

 uninhabited, inaccessible regions where it is well worth while to 

 follow them, however, since their flight, always charming, dash- 

 ing, and elegant, now assumes matchless perfection impossible 

 to describe. Even their wooing is done on the wing. Several 

 pairs may build in a neighborhood, which is usually a dense wood 

 near water that attracts their prey within easy reach ; and at the 

 top of some tall, straight tree, anywhere from sixty to one hundred 

 and forty feet from the ground, an irregular nest of large loose 

 twigs, lined or unlined with moss, may likely as not rise from the 

 foundations of one used the previous year. From two to four white 

 eggs, boldly spotted or blotched with different shades of brown, 

 are laid any time from April to June, according to the latitude. It is 

 thought both kites take turns at the incubating, which is closely 

 attended to ; or at least the male is particularly devoted to his 

 sitting mate, always being seen near by. In leaving the nest a 

 bird rises upward suddenly as if sent up by a spring, instead of 

 flying sidewise as most birds do; and in alighting it first poises 

 itself directly above the eggs, then descends on apparently 

 motionless wings so softly and lightly the large body might be 

 a single feather dropping from the sky. 



310 



