SWALLOW-TAILED KITE. 107 



seen to open ; the head was then, with closed beak, raised 

 again, and the foot thrown back. This movement was 

 repeated very frequently, precisely the same actions being 

 observable on every occasion, and this not only in the case of 

 one bird, but of all of them." 



Nuttall says that the Swallow-tailed Kites at times also 

 seize upon the nests of locusts and wasps, and, like the 

 Honey-Buzzard, devour both the mature insects and their 

 larvae ; but snakes and lizards form their usual food. Mac- 

 gillivray remarks that this species, unlike (so far as is known) 

 all other Falconida, possesses no crop or enlargement of the 

 oesophagus. Common as this bird is in various parts of 

 America, very little seems known about its mode of breeding. 

 Audubon describes the nest as placed on the top branches of 

 the tallest trees and resembling that of a Crow, being formed 

 of sticks, intermixed with Spanish moss and lined with 

 coarse grasses and a few feathers. Mr. Dresser, who found 

 the species very abundant in some parts of Texas, and had a 

 good opportunity of observing it, states (Ibis, 1865, p. 326) 

 that those he noticed in the month of May were preparing 

 their nests in some high cotton-wood trees in a grove close 

 to a creek near the Bio Colorado. He did not succeed in 

 getting any of the eggs, but Mr. Henry Buckley has kindly 

 forwarded the following description of one which he has 

 received from Iowa : " White with a very faint bluish tinge, 

 marked all over, especially at the smaller end, with dark umber 

 blotches of two shades. Except in size it is not unlike 

 some Ospreys', and measures 1*78 by 1-44 in." Another 

 egg from the same source now in Mr. Dresser's collection is 

 much less highly coloured, and that gentleman remarks of it 

 that " the grain most resembles that of a Marsh-Harrier's, 

 but it has no gloss whatever. In form also it is not unlike 

 the egg of that bird, and measures 1/95 by 1'5 in." Mr. 

 Buckley's correspondent informs him that the eggs are 

 usually, if not always, two in number, and are laid at the 

 end of May or early in June, in nests resembling that 

 described, as above, by Audubon. 



The following is Mr. Fothergill's description, as above 

 mentioned, of the example taken in Yorkshire in 1805 : 



