148 



SWALLUVV-TAILKI) KITE. 

 Elanoides forficatus. 



] DESCRIPTION. 



Bill ralher small and moderately stout and narrow; feet 

 small but stout; claws short but strongly curved; wings very 

 long- and pointed; tail long and deeply forked, the outside 

 feathers being more than twice as long as the middle pair. 

 On the wing this hawk looks and moves like a huge swallow. 

 Head, neck, band across rump, basal portion of secondaries 

 and entire lower parts pure white; interscapulars and lesser 

 wing-coverts purplish black; rest of back, wings and tail slaty 

 black. Bill blue black; legs and feet dull bluish-yellow; iris 

 brown; length variable; a female before me measures 24 inches 

 long; wing 17; lateral tail feathers 1214 inches. 



Habitat.— iicxithein United Staos, esp.eci.illy ia the intevior, 

 from Pennsylvania and Minnesota southward, through Cen- 

 tral and South America; westward to the great plains. Casual 

 eastward to southern New England. 



The Swallow-tailed Kite or "Wasp-hawk/' as it is 

 generally called in Florida, where it is common, is a 

 very rare and irregular visitor in Pennsylvania. A 

 specimen in the museum of the Linnaean Society, at 

 Lancaster city, was captured many years ago in Lan- 

 « caster county. Prof. H. J. Roddy obtained one May 

 27, 1885, in Perry county; and a straggler was also a 

 few years since found in Allegheny county by Mr. 

 R. C. Wrenshall, of Pittsburgh. In the stomachs of 

 five of these Kites which I killed in Florida in ^larcli 

 and April. 18S.j, there were found grasshoppers, bee- 

 tles, toad.s and lizards. According to different writers 

 they feed i>rincipally on grasshoppers, beetles, cater- 

 pillars, small snakes, lizards and frogs. 



DOES NOT MOT^EST POULTRY. 



I hav(> made many inquiiies in the south where 

 these Kites were plentiful and was invariably told by 

 jMM'sons who had been familiar with the birds all tlieir 



