SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 
25 
allied to our kite, (but differing from it in having very 
short tarsi, half-plumed,) are pre-eminently long-winged. 
America produces a fine species {Naudems furcatus), 
which is white and has black wings and tail. Wilson has 
described its habits, but we prefer extracting a note from the 
journal of Lieut. Abert, of the United States Topographical 
Engineers, and who accompanied Lieut. Emory, in 1846, on 
a warlike excursion from Eort Leavenworth to San Diego. 
High above us, the swallow-tailed hawk {Naudems furca- 
tus) was sweeping round in graceful circles, its white head 
glancing in the sunlight. I asked the Indian lad to shoot 
it for me with his rifle ; but he gazed upwards at the bird, 
and seemed so struck with the beauty of its movements, that 
he uttered not a word, but shook his head, to signify that 
the bird was too fair for him to kill it. I should think it 
impossible for smaller birds ever to escape this hawk, which 
unites the form and swiftness of the swallow with the bold- 
ness and strength of wing of the falcon"^.^' 
Mr. Hodgson, long our Resident in Nepal, and so well 
known for his knowledge of natural history and the fine 
collection and drawings which he made, has published 
much on the birds and quadrupeds of India. In the ^ Ma- 
* Ex. Doc. no. 41, 30th Congress, p. 392. Washington, 1848. 
