LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
217 
and presently mounting in spiral circles to tlie lof- 
tier regions of the air, as if it had forsaken this 
sordid world, and would wing its w^ay to some dis- 
tant sphere. 
The children, who are familiar with this charm- 
ing bird, say that several of them build every year 
in a gloomy pine swamp not far off. I know the 
place, a sombre dismal tract, bordering on both 
sides a sluggish stream that falls into the Ala- 
bama, where tall rugged pine trees rear their lofty 
heads, and spread their sable foliage, and toss 
about their gnarled arms, festooned wnth those 
pendant rags of Spanish moss that chill the spirit, 
and seem the very essence of desolation. On one 
of the tallest of these old pines, at the very sum- 
mit of the tree, there is a great bundle of sticks 
and moss, which the lads tell me is a kite’s nest 
of the present season, though now deserted, and 
already the worse for summer storms. 
I have just obtained a specimen of a bird nearly 
related to this, and which might, indeed, be sup- 
posed by a stranger to be the same species in 
imperfect plumage. The colours and their distri- 
bution are much the same as in the preceding, but 
they are less pure, both the white and the black 
inclining to grey. Its size too is smaller, and the 
tail is but slightly forked. This is the Mississippi 
Kite [Ictinia Mississipiensis ) ; a much less common 
bird, but of nearly the same habits and manners. 
My specimen was brought down by the unerring 
rifle of a friend the other day, while pursuing the 
same graceful evolutions in flight that I have men- 
tioned as characteristic of its more elegant cousin. 
The food of both species is described to me as con- 
sisting mainly of the larger insects and the smaller 
