SWALLOW-TAILED KITE. 85 



Gould,* in considering that it required to be distinguished 

 generically from the species belonging to the genera MIL- 

 vus and EL ANUS, with which it was previously associated. 

 I have also availed myself of the detailed generic characters 

 published by Mr. Swainson in his Natural History and 

 Classification of Birds, volume ii. p. 210. 



The first of these two examples of the Swallow-tailed 

 Kite just referred to as having been taken in Britain was 

 killed at Balachoalist, in Argyleshire, in 1772, and, ac- 

 cording to Dr. Fleming, was recorded by the late Dr. 

 Walker in his Adversaria for 1772, page 87, and for 1774, 

 page 153. The occurrence of the second example is thus 

 recorded in the fourteenth volume of the Transactions of 

 the Linnaean Society, page 583 : " Dr. Sims, F.L.S., 

 communicated to the Society an extract of a letter from 

 W. Fothergill, Esq., of Carr-end, near Arkrigg, in York- 

 shire, containing a notice of the Faho furcatus, Linn., 

 having been taken alive in Shaw-gill, near Hawes, in 

 "Wensleydale, in that county, on the 6th of September, 

 1805. Mr. Fothergill states, that, apparently to avoid the 

 violence of a tremendous thunderstorm, and the clamorous 

 persecution of a flock of Rooks which attacked it at the 

 same instant, it took shelter in a thicket, where it was 

 seized before it could extricate itself. The person who 

 caught it kept it a month ; but a door being accidentally 

 left open, it made its escape. It first alighted on a tree 

 at no great distance, from which it soon ascended in a 

 spiral flight to a great elevation, and then went steadily 

 off in a southerly direction as far as the eye could trace 

 it." 



The Swallow-tailed Kite, the Falco furcatus of Linnaeus, 

 is only an occasional visitor to this country : it is a native 

 of the southern States of North America, where it remains 

 * Birds of Europe. 



