518 NATURAL HISTORY. 



dashes in upon the scene, the fish-hawk redoubles its efforts to escape. 

 Quicker and more vigorously the long wings beat ; higher and higher the 

 spiral flight extends ; but all in vain. The fish-hawk, even when unincum- 

 bered, is no match for his pursuer ; but weighted down by his fish, even 

 though it be a small one, is too heavily handicapped to continue the 

 unequal contest for a long time. Still he keeps up his shrieks, and when, 

 at last, he drops his dinner and wends his way to the shore, his cry is a 

 mixture of disappointment, rage, and a thousand other emotions. 



Captain M'Caulay relates an instance of a fish-hawk deceiving an eagle, 

 which is too good to remain buried in the pages of the i Geological Survey 

 Bulletin.' A friend, he says, noticed a fish-hawk rise from the water 

 with a prize in his mouth, and, after getting a short distance inland, beset 

 upon by an eagle, evidently waiting for a meal, and a quiet spectator of the 

 scene. Being attacked and compelled to give it up, he dropped it, and the 

 eagle, catching it in the air, flew away with it, apparently disregarding 

 the pangs of a guilty conscience. The next day he noticed a repetition of 

 the fishing operation by the hawk, and on the approach of the eagle, as 

 before, the prey was promptly dropped, while the hawk quietly disappeared. 

 The eagle again caught the object in the air, and quickly let it go again. 

 This being thought somewhat strange, led to an investigation, when it was 

 found that the cause of this peculiar conduct, on the part of the thievish 

 bird of freedom, was that the supposed fish was in reality a piece of dried 

 manure. 



The true kites all belong to the Old World, and their soaring flight has 

 given their name to the paper toys which boys are so fond of flying in the 

 early days of spring. This similarity of names — the kite of paper and 

 the kite of flesh and feathers — causes foreigners some perplexity, as is the 

 case with many other similar words in the English language ; and, so the 

 story goes, a learned German ornithologist soberly catalogued Franklin's 

 famous experiments with a kite in a bibliography of works relating to birds. 



We have some birds which are called kites, and two of the species 

 found in the central and southern portions of our country are represented 

 in our figure. One of these, the swallow-tailed kite, deserves more space 

 than we can afford it ; for it is at once the handsomest species and the 

 most graceful flier of all our birds of prey. We cannot forego one short 

 quotation. The swallow-tailed kite " courses through the air with a grace 

 and buoyancy it would be vain to rival. By a stroke of the thin-bladed 

 wings and a lashing of the cleft tail, its flight is swayed to this side or 

 that in a moment, or instantly arrested. Now it swoops with incredible 

 swiftness, seizes without a pause, and bears its struggling captive aloft, 

 feeding from its talons as it flies ; now it mounts in airy circles till it is a 



