SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 69 



season, Mr. Bartram informs me, they are seen in Florida, at a vast 

 height in the air, sailing about with great steadiness ; and continued 

 to be seen thus, passing to their winter quarters, for several days. They 

 usually feed from their claws as they fly along. Their flight is easy 

 and graceful, with sometimes occasional sweeps among the trees, the 

 long feathers of their tail spread out, and each extremity of it used. 

 alternately, to lower, elevate, or otherwise direct their course. I have 

 never yet met with their nests. 



These birds are particularly attached to the extensive prairies of the 

 western countries, where their favorite snakes, lizards, grasshoppers 

 and locusts, are in abundance. They are sometimes, though rarely, 

 seen in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and that only in long and very 

 warm summers. We are informed, that one was taken in the South 

 Sea, off the cost which lies between Ylo and Arica, in about lat. 23° 

 south, on the eleventh of September, by the Reverend the Father Louis 

 Feuill^e.* They are also common in Mexico, and extend their migra- 

 tions as far as Peru. 



The Swallow-tailed Hawk measures full two feet in length and up- 

 wards of four feet six inches in extent ; the bill is black ; cere yellow, 

 covered at the base with bristles ; iris of the eye silvery cream, 

 surrounded with a blood-red ring; whole head and neck pure white, 

 the shafts fine black hairs ; the whole lower parts also pure white ; 

 the throat and breast shafted in the same manner ; upper parts, or back, 

 black, glossed with green and purple ; whole lesser coverts very dark 

 purple ; wings long, reaching within two inches of the tip of the tail, 

 and black ; tail also very long, and remarkably forked, consisting of 

 twelve feathers, all black, glossed with green and purple ; several of 

 the tertials white or edged with white, but generally covered by the 

 scapulars ; inner vanes of the secondaries white on their upper half, 

 black towards their points; lining of the wings white; legs yellow, 

 short and thick, and feathered before, half way below the knee ; claws 

 much curved, whitish ; outer claw very small. The greater part of the plu- 

 mage is white at the base ; and when the scapulars are a little displaced, 

 they appear spotted with white. 



This was a male in perfect plumage. The color and markings cf the 

 male and female are nearly alike. 



* Jour, des Obs. torn, ii., 33. 



