FALCONIDAE I 7 I 



hang round a wounded individual like Terns. In the nest and 

 eggs this species and the last resemble their kin, though using 

 no rubbish in building. Nauchrus riocouri, of inter-tropical Africa, 

 a miniature Elano'ides, is grey, with white face and lower surface. 



Gampsonyx swainsoni, of Trinidad, Guiana, Colombia, Peru, 

 and Brazil, is grey, with yellow face, white collar, under parts 

 and tips to the secondaries ; a black patch relieving each side of 

 the breast and one of red the upper back. The tail is rounded 

 in this and the succeeding genus. Elanus caeruleus, the Black- 

 winged Kite, straying to South-West Europe, but properly ranging 

 from the South-East to India, Ceylon, and all Africa, is ashy-grey 

 above with a black patch on the wing-coverts ; the face, lateral 

 rectrices, and all the lower plumage being white, and the irides 

 red. A sub-species, E. hypoleucus, occupies Borneo, Java, the 

 Philippines, and Celebes. E. scriptus of Australia, E. axillaris, 

 extending thence to Java, and the hardly separable E. leucurus 

 of tropical and sub-tropical America, are marked with black on 

 the under wing-coverts, while the first has black axillaries also. 

 These buoyant birds are fond of perching, but soar with ease, 

 quartering the plains like Harriers, or hovering with uplifted wings 

 to dart down upon their prey of insects, snakes, small mammals, and 

 more rarely birds. The cry is mournful ; the small nest, of sticks, 

 grass, and moss, is placed in trees ; the three, four, or even eight 

 white eggs being heavily blotched with red. Ictinia mississip- 

 piensis, the Mississippi Kite, found from the Southern United 

 States to Guatemala, and represented from Mexico to Paraguay 

 by the black-winged /. plumbea, is lead-coloured, with black notched 

 tail and rufous inner webs to the primaries ; its manners cor- 

 respond to those of Elano'ides, but the eggs are white. 



That most abnormal form Eostrhamus sociabilis, the Awl-billed 

 or Everglade Kite, ranging from Florida and Cuba to Bolivia and 

 Argentina, is slaty-black, with white base and tip to the brownish 

 emarginate tail, orange cere and feet, and crimson irides. The 

 extraordinarily slender bill with long terminal hook no doubt 

 assists greatly in extracting from their shells the molluscs, such 

 as Ampullaria, on which this species entirely subsists, while its 

 long legs and sharp talons . help to secure the prey in the 

 muddy swamps it frequents. Mr. Gibson ^ tells us that it is to 

 some extent gregarious, and is often seen slowly beating over the 



1 Cf. Jiis, 1879, pp. 413, 414. 



