180 LIFE HISTOEIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



63. Rostrhamus sociabilis (Vieillot). 



EVERGLADE KITE. 



Herpetotheres sociabilis Vieillot, Nouveau Dictionaire, xviii, 1818, 318. 

 Rostrhamus sociabilis D'Orbigny, Voyage ; Oiseaux, 11, 1847, 73. 



(B 37, C 334, R 429, C 490, U 330.) 



Geographical range: Whole of tropical America, except part of West Indies; 

 south to Argentine Republic and Ecuador; north to Florida and Atlantic coast of 

 Mexico. 



The Everglade Kite, a common South American species, has but a very 

 restricted range within the United States, being a resident of the swamps and 

 marshes of southern Florida, and said to be fairly abundant in the Everglades. 

 It breeds in suitable localities throughout these little known regions. 



Messrs. Sclater and Hudson say: "This Hawk in size and manner of flight 

 resembles a Buzzard, but in its habits and the form of its slender and very 

 sharply hooked beak it differs widely from that bird. The name of the 'Soci- 

 able Marsh Hawk,' which Azara gave to this species, is very appropriate, for 

 they invariably live in flocks of from twenty to a hundred individuals, and 

 migrate and even breed in company. In Buenos Ayres they appear in Sep- 

 tember and resort to marshes and streams abounding in large water snails 

 (Ampullcvria), on which they feed exclusively. Each bird has a favorite perch 

 or spot of ground to which it carries every snail it captures, and after skillfully 

 extracting the animal with its curiously modified beak, it drops the shell on the 

 mound. When disturbed or persecuted by other birds they utter a peculiar 

 cry, resembling the shrill neighing of a horse. In disposition they are most 

 peaceable, and where they are abundant all other birds soon discover that 

 they are not like other Hawks and pay no attention to them. When soaring, 

 which is their favorite pastime, the flight is singularly slow, the bird frequently 

 remaining motionless for long intervals in one place, but the expanded tail is 

 all the time twisted about in the most singular manner, moved from side to 

 side, and turned up, until its edge is nearly at a right angle with the plane of 

 the body. * * * 



"Concerning its breeding habits, Mr. Gibson writes: 'In the year 1873, I 

 was so fortunate as to find a breeding colony in one of our largest and deepest 

 swamps. There were probably twenty or thirty nests placed a few yards apart 

 in the deepest and most lonely part of the whole 'canadon.' They were 

 slightly built platforms, supported on the rushes and 2 or 3 feet above the 

 water, with the cup-shaped hollow lined with pieces of grass and water rush. 

 The eggs never exceeded three in a nest ; the ground color generally bluish 

 white, blotched and clouded very irregularly with dull red brown, the rufous 

 tint sometimes being replaced with ash gray.'" 1 



Mr. C. J. Maynard describes a nest found by him in the Everglades, which 

 was placed in a magnolia bush about 4 feet from the water, as quite flat and 



'Argentine Ornithology, 1887, Vol. 11, pp. 72, 73. 



