608 GLEANINGS. 



wings and tail; quills of the primaries and adjoining parts 

 of the webs, rich chestnut; the sexes alike. The nest is in 

 trees; the 2 or 3 eggs, some 1.51x1-31, are roundish, green- 

 ish-white and " thickly spotted and blotched with deep 

 chocolate-brown and black." (Maynard.) 



The White-tailed or Black-shouldered Kite (Elanus leucu- 

 rus), of the " South Atlantic and Gulf States, California 

 and southward, chiefly coastwise," is white, with a gull-like 

 curtain of ashy-gray over the back and wings, excepting the 

 wing-coverts, which are black. Length, 15.50; extent, 39.50. 

 The nest, in low trees, contains 4-6 eggs, roundish, white, 

 heavily marked with several shades of brown. Not com- 

 mon in its easterly range. 



The elegant Swallow-tailed Kite (Nauclerus furcatus] is 

 an abundant summer resident in the Southern, and rarely 

 reaches the Middle States. Some 22.00 long and 46.00 in 

 extent, its graceful forked tail is more than a foot in length. 

 The head, neck and under parts are white, with shafts of 

 the feathers of the head, neck and breast, black; the upper 

 parts, including the tail, black, glossed with green. Whether 

 skimming the surface, gliding over the bushes and tree-tops, 

 or circling high in air, the flight of this species is strikingly 

 beautiful. Stooping to capture a snake, he will carry it 

 high in air, and devour it at his leisure while on the wing. 

 The nest, in high tree-tops, and neatly made of sticks, weeds 

 and tillandsia, is lined with grasses, and contains 4-6 eggs, 

 1.85X1.49, oval, greenish-white, heavily marked with brown 

 of several shades. 



The Jerfalcon (Falco sacer), 21-23 inches long, white, with 

 dark markings like the Snowy Owl, or dusky, cross-barred 

 with whitish, is an extremely arctic species of circumpolar 

 distribution, rarely reaching New England in winter. 



The famous Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), very well 



