118 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



GENUS. ELANOIDES VIEILLOT. 

 Elanoides forficatus (LiNN.). 



Swallow-tailed Kite. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Bill rather 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. 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 

 124 inches. 



Habitat. Southern United States, especially in the interior, from Pennsylvania 

 and Minnesota southward, through Central and South America ; westward to the 

 great plains. Casual eastward to southern New England. 



The Swallow-tailed Kite, or "Wasp-hawk," as it is commonly called in 

 Florida, where it is common, is a very rare and irregular visitor in Penn- 

 sylvania. A specimen in the museum of the Linnsean Society, at Lan- 

 caster city, was captured many years ago in Lancaster county. Prof. 

 H. J. Roddy obtained one May 27, 1885, in Perry county ; and a strag- 

 gler was also recently found in Allegheny county by Mr. R. C. Wren- 

 shall, of Pittsburgh. In the stomachs of five of these kites which I 

 killed in Florida in March and April, 1885, were found several kinds of 

 insects. According to different writers they feed principally on grass- 

 hoppers, beetles, caterpillars, small snakes, lizards and frogs. This 

 hawk rarely alights on the ground ; its food is captured and eaten when 

 on the wing. 



GENUS ICTINIA VIEILLOT. 

 Ictinia mississippiensis (WiLS.).- 



Mississippi Kite. 



DESCRIPTION. 



' General form short ,.nd compact. Bill short, tip emarginated ; wings long, 

 pointed ; tail rather short, emarginated ; tarsi short. 



"Adult. Upper parts of body dark lead color, nearly black on rump ; head and 

 under parts cinereous, darkest on abdomen ; quills and tail brownish-black ; * * 

 tips of secondaries ashy-white ; a longitudinal stripe on each web of primaries chest- 

 nut rufous." (Length of male about 14 inches; extent about 36; female a little 

 larger.) B. B. of N. A. 



Habitat. Southern United States, southward from South Carolina on the coast, 

 and Wisconsin and Iowa in the interior to Mexico. 



Rare straggler in Pennsylvania. I have never met with it in this 

 state. The only specimen that has been taken here, so far as I can learn, 

 within the past twenty years, was captured in Perry county by Prof. H. 

 J. Roddy, September, 1886. 



