64 BRITISH BIRDS. 



approached it took a lofty flight towards the south, as far as the eye could 

 follow, and has not since been heard of " 



Other specimens of the Swallow-tailed Kite have been said to have been 

 killed in England and Ireland, but on evidence that is too unsatisfactory 

 to be taken as conclusive (cf. Zool. 1854, pp. 4166, 4366, 4406, arid 

 Zool. 1856, p. 5042). A fourth specimen is also said to have been obtained 

 on the Mersey, in June 1843. 



The Swallow-tailed Kite is a summer migrant to the Southern S tats 

 of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, its breeding-range 

 extending somewhat further north, in the valley of the Mississippi, into 

 Southern Wisconsin. It winters in the West Indies and in Central 

 America, where a few remain to breed in the mountains, wandering south- 

 wards into the northern and central portions of South America. 



The Swallow-tailed Kite is said to return to its breeding-grounds in the 

 beginning of April, and breeds later than the other birds of prey. Accord- 

 ing to Audubon, " in the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, where these 

 birds are abundant, they arrive in large companies, in the beginning of 

 April, and are heard uttering a sharp plaintive note. At this period I 

 generally remarked that they came from the westward, and have counted 

 upwards of a hundred in the space of an hour passing over me in a direct 

 easterly course. At that season and in the beginning of September, when 

 they all retire from the United States, they are easily approached when 

 they have alighted, being then apparently fatigued, and busily engaged in 

 preparing themselves for continuing their journey. 1 " 



" Marked among its kind by no ordinary beauty of form and brilliancy 

 of colour, the Kite,"" writes Dr. Coues in his ' Birds of the North West/ 

 " 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 or that side 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 speck in the blue ether, and disappears. 

 All its actions, in wantonness or in severity of the chase, display the dash 

 of the athletic bird, which, if lacking the brute strength and brutal ferocity 

 of some, becomes their peer in prowess like the trained gymnast, whose 

 tight-strung thews, supple joints, and swelling muscles, under marvellous 

 control, enable him to execute feats that to the more massive or not so 

 well-conditioned frame would be impossible. One cannot watch the flight 

 of the Kite without comparing it with the thorough-bred racer. The 

 Swallow-tailed Kite is a marked feature of the scene in the Southern 

 States, alike where the sunbeams are redolent of the orange and magnolia, 

 and where the air reeks with the pestilent miasm of moss-shrouded swamps 

 that sleep in perpetual gloom." 



