70 



SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 

 FALCO FURCATUS. 



if 



[Plate LI.— Fig. 2.] 



Linn. Syst 129.=— Lath. I, 60. — Hirundo maxima Peruviana avis prmdatons calearibus instructa, 

 Fetjillee, Voy. Fmi, torn. 11, 33. — Catesb. 1, 4. — LeMelan de la Caroline, BRisi. 1. 418. — ^Burr. 

 I, 221.— TuRT. Syst. 1^9,— Jlrct. Zool. p. 210, JVo. 108.— Peaie's Museum, JV*o. 142. 



THIS very elegant species inhabits the southern districts of 

 the United States in summer; is seldom seen as far north as Penn- 

 sylvania, but is very abundant in South Carolina and 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 numbers 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 color at will, also furnishes the Swallow- 

 tailed Hawk with a favorite morsel. These lizards are sometimes 

 of the most brilliant light green, in a few minutes change to a dirty 

 clay color, 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.^ 



* 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 color is surprising, and not generally known to naturalists. 



