682 



BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



a developed embryo or before. All of the broods referred to were too 

 young to have gone many yards from home; there were none of their 

 kind for a long distance, and the extreme solicitude displayed by the 

 mothers was conclusive that they belonged to one clutch. 



During a day's march across the country near McClellan Creek, when 

 .we had seen no owls for a long distance, one of the scouts with our party 

 espied, a short distance ahead, a mother with her family, giving them an 

 airing in the morning sun, perhaps ten or fifteen yards from their home. 

 Putting spurs to his horse, he bore down upon them, the frightened 

 mother scrambling for home, anxiously calling her young. Unfortu- 

 nately for the interests of the family, they were only equal to a fair toddle, 

 and in their confusion two of them were cut off and captured, one of 

 which was set at liberty, at once going for his hole with a lively step. 

 There were six or seven in all, and undoubtedly were from the same 

 hatch 5 they were in their pin-feathers (June 19). The captive was taken 

 to camp, and such an exceedingly comical object was he, with his little 

 body and huge yellow eyes, that he turned out to be the prime pet of our 

 party, furnishing more amusement than all the others together. 



FALCONIDJE. 



ISfAUCLERUS FURCATUS, (L.) Yig. — Swalloiv tailed Kite. 



A specimen noted, going along Wolf Creek, Indian Territory. 



Falco mbxicanus, Licht. — Lanner Ffilcon. 



Occasionally observed in open country to Red Eiver region, and 

 thence in caQon localities. At CaSoncito Blanco, after obtaining one of 

 the parent birds, an attempt was made to secure the nest, admirably 

 situated in a crevice, about fifteen feet below the top of the vertical 

 canon-wall. Its height was nearly a hundred feet from the stream's 

 bed, and the wall could not be scaled from below, the top jutted out, a 

 great rock overhanging, preventing any one from getting down from its 

 edge. After shooting one of the brood, which, older and much larger 

 than the others, was advanced enough to fly, the rest were secured by 

 one of the scouts in a decidedly novel manner. Tying a lish-hook to a 

 short rag, fastened at the end of a long pole, he thrust it down into the 

 nest, lying down upon the overhanging edge of the rock. True to their 

 instincts, the young, unable to walk or fly, were ready for a tight; they 

 pecked at the "intruder" one by one, and were rudely fished out in sue- 



