THE SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 79 



ings, and the extreme ease with which they seem to cleave the air, excite the 

 admiration of him who views them while thus employed in searching for food. 



A solitary individual of this species has once or twice been seen in Penn- 

 sylvania. Farther to the eastward, the Swallow-tailed Hawk has never, I 

 believe, been observed. Travelling southward, along the Atlantic coast, we 

 find it in Virginia, although in very small numbers. Beyond that State it 

 becomes more abundant. Near the Falls of the Ohio, a pair had a nest and 

 reared four young ones, in 1820. In the lower parts of Kentucky it begins 

 to become more numerous; but in the States farther to the south, and par- 

 ticularly in parts near the sea, it is abundant. In the large prairies of the 

 Attacapas and Oppellousas it is extremely common. 



In the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, where these birds are abundant, 

 they arrive in large companies, in the beginning of April, and are heard 

 uttering a sharp plaintive note. At this period I generally remarked that 

 they came from the westward, and have counted upwards of a hundred in 

 the space of an hour, passing over me in a direct easterly course. At that 

 season, and in the beginning of September, when they all retire from the 

 United States, they are easily approached when they have alighted, being 

 then apparently fatigued, and busily engaged in preparing themselves for 

 continuing their journey, by dressing and oiling their feathers. At all other 

 times, however, it is extremely difficult to get near them, as they are gene- 

 rally on wing through the day, and at night rest on the highest pines and 

 cypresses, bordering the river-bluffs, the lakes or the swamps of that district 

 of country. 



They always feed on the wing. In calm and warm weather, they soar to 

 an immense height, pursuing the large insects called Musquito Hawks, and 

 performing the most singular evolutions that can be conceived, using their 

 tail with an elegance of motion peculiar to themselves. Their principal food, 

 however, is large grasshoppers, grass-caterpillars, small snakes, lizards, and 

 frogs. They sweep close over the fields, sometimes seeming to alight for a 

 moment to secure a snake, and holding it fast by the neck, carry it off, and 

 devour it in the air. When searching for grasshoppers and caterpillars, it is 

 not difficult to approach them under cover of a fence or tree. When one is 

 then killed and falls to the ground, the whole flock comes over the dead bird, 

 as if intent upon carrying it off. An excellent opportunity is thus afforded 

 of shooting as many as may be wanted, and I have killed several of these 

 Hawks in this manner, firing as fast as I could load my gun. 



The Fork-tailed Hawks are also very fond of frequenting the creeks, 

 which, in that country, are much encumbered with drifted logs and accumu- 

 lations of sand, in order to pick up some of the numerous water-snakes which 

 lie basking in the sun. At other times, they clash along the trunks of trees, 



