128 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



or sometimes, when feeding on a carcass, on fences in the open. 

 The eggs are laid on the ground, in hollow trees, stubs, or 

 fallen logs, or in caves or crevices of cliffs. 



BLACK VULTURE; CARRION-CROW: Coragyps urubu 

 urubu (Vieillot).t 



State records. — The black vulture, or "carrion crow," is in 

 most sections of the State fully as common as the turkey vul- 

 ture, and in the southern part is even more abundant. It 

 has been found nesting at Cedarville (April 1), Autaugaville 

 (April 13, incubated eggs), Barachias (March 29 and 

 April 8) ; Leighton (March 16 and May 25) , and Dean (March 

 18, 1912, at 2,000 feet altitude) ; it is reported to breed, also, 

 on Sand Mountain, near Carpenter. 



General habits. — This vulture often associates with the tur- 

 key buzzard and frequently feeds from the same carcass, but 

 is more inclined to gather into flocks. It is easily distin- 

 guished from the latter in flight by its much shorter tail and 

 generally darker color, as well as by its habit of alternately 

 flapping and sailing. At Barachias, on the evening of April 

 24, 1912, I counted over 100 of these birds flying to their 

 roosting place on dead trees in a slough. The nest is placed 

 in a hollow stump or log, the standing trunk of a decayed 

 tree, or on the ground in the woods. Audubon states that 

 both sexes assist in incubation, and that "each feeds the other 

 by disgorging the contents of the stomach, or part of them, 

 immediately before the bird that is sitting.* 



HAWKS, EAGLES, KITES, ETC.r Family Accipitridae. 



SWALLOW-TAILED KITE : Elanoides forficatus forficatus 



(Linnaeus). 



State records. — The swallow-tailed kite was formerly num- 

 erous in the Southern States and the Mississippi Valley, but 

 is now extremely rare. Gosse, writing from Dallas County 

 in 1858, speaks of it as "seen nearly every day [in July] asso- 



tCatharista uruba of the A. O. U. Check-list ; for change of name see The Auk, vol. 

 37, p. 444, 1920. 



•Audubon, J. J., Ornith. Bioe., vol. 2, p. 42, 1835. 



