18 Barlow, Nesting Habits of White-tailed Kite. oe 
third time and successfully reared their brood. This year the 
birds had disappeared, and were not located in the surrounding 
country, so it is evident that they had been shot after inhabiting 
the locality for at least ten years. 
On March 24, 1895, I met my second pair of birds in a region 
similar to the last and where I had somewhat expected a pair 
might be nesting. When incubation has well begun the female is 
difficult to flush, and the male seems to make himself as inconspic- 
uous as possible, so one might at times pass through a locality 
inhabited by the Kites and not suspect their presence. On the 
day in question, while walking among the trees I chanced to seea 
Kite flying toward a cloister of oaks half a mile distant and 
followed it. The bird, presumably the male, was perched on a 
lofty white oak, the highest in the field, where he sat quietly. Sus- 
pecting the female had a nest near by I began a careful search of 
the neighboring oaks and after twenty minutes’ work located the 
nest twenty feet up in a small live oak tree. The female did not 
leave the nest until I had almost reached in, when she flew to a 
near-by tree and was joined by the male. The male began a 
gallant attack in defense of the nest, swooping down on me at 
intervals in a furious manner, being occasionally reinforced by 
the female, while both snapped their beaks, much after the manner 
of young Owls. The nest was unusually large, having evidently 
been used more than once. It was lined with long dry grass, and 
similar in other respects to the average nest. It contained five 
heavily-marked eggs of the usual dark type, in which incubation 
was far advanced, three of the eggs being slightly pipped. From 
the stage of incubation it is likely that the nest was constructed 
late in February and the eggs laid soon after. The eggs of this 
set average 1.80 X 1.31. The clutch is now in the collection of 
Mr. John W. Mailliard. 
This pair of birds after being robbed removed to a locality half 
a mile away, where they soon began to construct a new nest in a 
small oak, twenty feet from the ground. One of the birds was 
observed to alight in the top of a tree, where it broke off a twig 
from among some dead limbs, when it flew back to the newly begun 
nest and deposited it. Finally the nest was completed and four 
eggs were laid. These I collected on April 15, the female leaving 
