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BIBDS OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
Genus ELANOIDES Vieillot. 
Elanoides forficatus (Linn.)- 
Swallow-tailed Kite. 
Description. 
Bill rather small and moderately stout and narrow ; feet small but stout ; claws 
short but strongly curved ; wings very long and pointed ; tail long and deeply 
forked. On the wing this hawk looks and moves like a huge swallow. Head, neck, 
band across rump, basal portion of secondaries and entire lower parts pure white ; 
interscapulars and lesser wing-coverts purplish-black ; rest of back, wings, and tail 
slaty-black. Bill blue black ; legs and feet dull bluish-yellow ; iris brown. Length 
variable ; a female before me measures 24 inches long ; wing 17 ; lateral tail feathers 
12i inches. 
Habitat. — Southern United States, especially in the interior, from Pennsylvania 
and Minnesota southward, through Central and South America ; westward to the 
great plains. Casual eastward to southern New England. 
The Swallow-tailed Kite, or “Wasp-hawk,” as it is commonly called in 
Florida, where it is common, is a very rare and irreg-ular visitor in Penn- 
sylvania. A specimen in the museum of the Linnsean Society, at Lan- 
caster city, was captured many years ag-o in Lancaster county. Prof. 
II. J. Roddy obtained one May 27, 1885, in Perry county ; and a strag- 
gler was also recently found in Allegheny county by Mr. R. C. Wren- 
shall, of Pittsburgh. In the stomachs of five of these kites which I 
killed in Florida in March and April, 1885, were found several kinds of 
insects. According to different writers they feed principally on grass- 
hoppers, beetles, caterpillars, small snakes, lizards and frogs. This 
hawk rarely alights on the ground ; its food is captured and eaten when 
on the wing. 
Genus ICTINIA Vieillot. 
Ictinia mississippiensis (Wils.). 
Mississippi Kite. 
Description. 
“General form short and compact. Bill short, tip emarginated ; wings long, 
pointed ; tail rather short, emarginated ; tarsi short. 
Adult . — Upper parts of body dark lead color, nearly black on rump; head and 
under parts cinereous, darkest on abdomen ; quills and tail brownish-black ; * * 
tips of secondaries ashy-white ; a longitudinal stripe on each web of primaries chest- 
nut rufous.” (Length of male about 14 inches; extent about 36; female a little 
larger.) — B, B. of N. A. 
Habitat . — Southern U nited States, southward from South Carolina on the coast, 
and Wisconsin and Iowa in the interior to Mexico. 
Rare straggler in Pennsylvania. I have never met with it in this 
state. The only specimen that has been taken here, so far as I can learn, 
within the past twenty years, was captured in Perry county by Prof. H. 
J. Roddy, September, 1886 . 
