A Catalogue of Birds obtained in Navarro County, Texas. 23o 



this time they feed entirely upon grasshoppers, beetles, and locusts ; 

 their utility is therefore unquestionable. They do not hunt 

 together in a close body, but scatter far and wide over the prairie, 

 all, however, having a general direction the same way. I have 

 thus had many opportunities of admiring the grace and buoy- 

 ancy of their flight, but was never so much struck by it as once 

 when resting among some mesquites on the prairie, when a kite 

 was feeding upon the singing locusts, which are always to be 

 found on those trees. It would sail slowly over the top of a tree, 

 striking the upper branches with its long wings as it passed, and 

 as soon as the locust darted out, it would throw itself forward by 

 a sudden flap of the wings, and at the same moment thrust forward 

 its foot so far that it seemed almost to turn over on its back in the 

 air, seize the insect in its claws, and stripping off the hard parts 

 by a sideways action of the bill, transfer the remainder to its 

 mouth ; and this, which takes so long to describe, was done 

 almost instantaneously, nor did I once see it fail to capture the 

 insect. " When first I arrived, but one bird was thus engaged, but 

 others, soaring so high that the eye could barely detect them 

 against the sky, soon observed its actions, and, closing their 

 wings, dropped swifter than sight could follow, and, when 

 nearing the tree-tops, checked their speed by a sudden expansion 

 of their wings, just as they appeared about to be dashed upon the 

 ground, then, with a few graceful beats of their long pinions, they 

 commenced operations for themselves. I can compare the noise 

 made in their downward plunge to nothing but that produced by 

 the rising of a rocket into the air. I never saw these hawks 

 alight upon the prairie, nor indeed anywhere except on the upper 

 branches of tall trees. 



IcTiNiA suBCiERULEA (Bartr.) Mississip'pi Kite. — A common 

 summer visitor to the thick timber along the river banks, being, like 

 the last species, more or less gregarious at all times, but especially so 

 in the autumn. They leave this district about the beginning of 

 September. They may generally be seen circling above their 

 breeding haunts at a considerable height, and their power of wing 

 is very great ; when seated they choose the loftiest branches of 

 dead trees. Their food appears to be formed entirely of insects. 

 I never observed one of these kites upon the prairie. 



Circus hudsonius (Linn.) Marsh Hawh—Thi^ is by far the 



SciEN. Pboo. R.D.S., Vol, iil., Ft. v. U 



