THE SWALLOW-TAILED KITE. 



( Elanoides forficatus. ) 



Hawks in highest heaven hover, 

 Soar in sight of all their victims : 

 None can charge them with deception, 

 All their crimes are deeds of daring. 



—Frank Belles, "The Blue Jay." 



The late Dr. Cones enthusiastically 

 writes of the beauty of the Swallow- 

 tailed Kite in the following words : 



''Marked among its kind by no ordi- 

 nary beauty of form and brilliancy of 

 -color, the Kite courses through the air 

 with a grace and buoyancy it would be 

 vain to rival. By a stroke of the thin- 

 bladed wings and a lashing of the cleft 

 tail, its flight is swayed to this or that 

 side in a moment, or instantly arrested. 

 Now it swoops with incredible swiftness, 

 seizes without a pause, and bears its 

 struggling captive aloft, feeding from 

 its talons as it flies. Now it mounts in 

 airy circles till it is a speck in the blue 

 ether and disappears. All its actions, 

 in wantonness or in severity of the chase, 

 display the dash of the athletic bird, 

 which, if lacking the brute strength and 

 brutal ferocity of some, becomes their 

 peer in prowess — like the trained gym- 

 nast, whose tight-strung thews, supple 

 joints, and swelling muscles, under mar- 

 velous control, enable him to execute 

 feats that to the more massive or not so 

 well conditioned frame would be impos- 

 sible. One cannot watch the flight of the 

 Kite without comparing it with the thor- 

 ough-bred racer." 



The Swallow-tailed Kite inhabits the 

 southern United States as far north as 

 the Carolinas. In the interior, it fre- 

 quents the Mississippi valley, commonly 

 as far north as Minnesota and westward 

 to tlie Great Plains. As a casual visit- 

 or, it is found in New York, New Eng- 

 land and Canada. Though some may 

 winter witliin the United States, the ma- 

 jority make their winter home in Cen- 

 tral and South America. 



Swallow-like, this Kite never seems 



contented unless coursing through the 

 air. There is its home and it seems to 

 frequent trees but little except during 

 the breeding season, when "flocks con- 

 sisting of from two or three to ten or 

 twelve birds, but oftener of three, may 

 be seen following one another around, 

 frequently uttering their calls and cir- 

 cling in and out among the tree tops so 

 fast as to make one dizzy to look at 

 them." It captures its food, eats and 

 drinks while on the wing, and some one 

 has said that he often wondered if it 

 did not, at times, even sleep while flying. 

 Its wonderful endurance and power of 

 flight have more than once taken it 

 across the ocean, where it has happily 

 surprised the ornithologists of Europe. 



The legs of the Swallow-tailed Kite are 

 so short that they are practically useless 

 for locomotion and it seldom lights on 

 the ground. Like the marsh hawks, it 

 obtains its food while flying close to the 

 ground ; or, if its prey be an insect, it 

 pursues it in the air. Dragon flies are 

 dainty morsels for this graceful bird. 

 At no time is the Kite's alertness 

 and control of every muscle in its 

 body more clearly shown than when 

 it is pursuing these insects. The 

 peculiar zigzag and vacillating flight 

 of the dragon fly must puzzle the keen- 

 est vision, yet this bird will instantly 

 change the direction of its flight, swoop- 

 ing downward, upward or to the side, 

 without a moment's hesitation, and some- 

 times in order to secure the fly "it is nec- 

 essary for it to turn completely over in 

 its evolutions." It also feeds extensive- 

 ly on snakes and other reptiles, insect 

 larv.T and grasshoppers. It is very use- 

 ful in cotton fields, which it frequents, 



