THE SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 



63 



tridges and other game It will also pounce upon Pigeons when 

 -separated from their companions. 



The editor of a respectable publication, entitled the Beauties of 

 Natural History, states, that when he was a boy he had a Sparrow- 

 hawk that used to accompany him through the fields, catch its game, 

 devour it at leisure, and, after all, find him out \\herever he went; 

 nor, after the first or second adventure of this kind, was he ever 

 afraid of losing the bird. A peasant, however, to his great mortifica- 

 tion, one day shot it for having made too free with some of his poultry. 

 It was about as large as a Wood-pigeon; and this gentleman says he 

 has seen it fly at a Tnrkev-cock. 



SPARROW HAWK AND ITS PREY. 



THE SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 



This beautiful Kite breeds and passes the summer in the warmer 

 parts of the United States, and is also probably resident in all tropical 

 and temperate America, mi- 

 grating into the southern as 

 well as the northern hemi- 

 sphere. In the former, ac- 

 cording to Viellot, it is found 

 in Peru, and as far as Buenos 

 Ay res ; and though it is ex- 

 tremely rare to meet with 

 this species as far as the lati- 

 tude of forty degrees in the 

 Atlantic States, yet tempted 

 by the abundance of the fruit- 

 ful valley of the Mississippi, 

 individuals have been seen 

 along that river as far as the 

 Falls of St. Anthony, in the 

 forty-fourth degree of north 

 latitude. Indeed, according to Fleming, two stragglers have even found 

 their devious way to the strange climate of Great Britain. 



SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 



