78 FALCONIDJE. 



Gould,* in considering that it required to be distinguished 

 generically from the species belonging to the genera MIL- 

 vus and ELANUS, 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 1 772, 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 Linnean Society, page 583 : " Dr. Sims, F.L.S. com- 

 municated to the Society an extract of a letter from W. 

 Fothergill, Esq. of Carr-end, near Arkrigg, in Yorkshire, 

 containing a notice of the Falco furcatus Linn, having 

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

 dale, 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 Linneus, 

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

 of the southern states of North America, where it remains 



* Bkds of Europe, pt. xxii. 



