SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 279 



Georgia, and still more so in West Florida, and the extensive 

 prairies of Ohio and the Indiana territory. I met with these 

 birds in the early part of May at a place called Duck Creek, 

 in Tennessee, and found them sailing about in great num- 

 bers near Bayo Manchac on the Mississippi, twenty or thirty 

 being within view at the same time. At that season a species 

 of cicada, or locust, swarmed among the woods, making a 

 deafening noise, and I could perceive these hawks frequently 

 snatching them from the trees. A species of lizard, which is 

 very numerous in that quarter of the country, and has the 

 faculty of changing its colour at will, also furnishes the swallow- 

 tailed hawk with a favourite morsel. These lizards are some- 

 times of the most brilliant light green, in a few minutes 

 change to a dirty clay colour, and again become nearly black. 

 The swallow-tailed hawk and Mississippi kite feed eagerly 

 on this lizard, and, it is said, on a small green snake also, 

 which is the mortal enemy of the lizard, and frequently pursues 

 it to the very extremity of the branches, where both become 

 the prey of the hawk.* 



The swallow-tailed hawk retires to the south in October, 

 at which season, Mr Bartram informs me, they are seen, in 

 Florida, at a vast height in the air, sailing about with great 



stance — which seize and devour the insect during flight ; but larger 

 prey is treated at leisure. I am aware of none that feed so decidedly 

 on the wing as that now described ; in everything it will appear more 

 like a large swallow than an accipitrine bird. 



Mr Audubon remarks another curious circumstance at variance with 

 the wary manners of the Falconidce. " When one is killed, and falls 

 to the ground, the whole flock comes over the dead bird, as if intent 

 upon carrying it off. I have killed several of these hawks in this 

 manner, firing as fast as I could load my gun." 



This bird occurred to the late Dr Walker, at Ballachulish, in Argyle- 

 shire, in 1792. Another specimen was taken near Howes, in Wensley- 

 dale, Yorkshire, by W. Fotheringill, Esq., and communicated to the 

 London Society, November 1823. — Ed. 



* This animal, if I mistake not, is the Lacerta bullaris, or bladder 

 lizard, of Turton, vol. i. p. 666. The facility with which it changes 

 colour is surprising, and not generally known to naturalists. 



