74 
FALCO MISSISSIPPIENSIS. 
vigilance and dexterity ; while his dark red eye sparkled 
with rage. Notwithstanding all my caution in seizing 
him to carry him home, he struck his hind claw into 
my hand with such force as to penetrate into the hone. 
Anxious to preserve his life, I endeavoured gently to 
disengage it ; hut this made him only contract it the 
more powerfully, causing such pain that I had no other 
alternative but that of cutting the sinew of his heel 
with my penknife. The whole time he lived with me, 
he seemed to watch every movement I made ; erecting 
the feathers of his hind head, and eyeing me with 
savage fierceness ; considering me, no doubt, as the 
greater savage of the two. What effect education 
might have had on this species under the tutorship of 
some of the old European professors of falconry, I know 
not ; hut if extent of wing, and energy of character, 
and ease and rapidity of flight, would have been any 
recommendations to royal patronage, this species pos- 
sesses all these in a very eminent degree. 
The long pointed wings and forked tail point out the 
affinity of this bird to that family or subdivision of the 
falco genus, distinguished by the name of kites, which 
sail without flapping the wings, and eat from their 
talons as they glide along. 
The Mississippi kite measures fourteen inches in 
length, and thirty-six inches, or three feet, in extent ! 
The head, neck, and exterior webs of the secondaries, 
are of a hoary white ; the lower parts a whitish ash ; 
bill, cere, lores, and narrow line round the eye, bl^ck ; 
back, rump, scapulars, and wing coverts, dark blackish 
ash ; wings, very long and pointed, the third quill the 
longest; the primaries are black, marked down each 
side of the shaft with reddish sorrel ; primary coverts 
also slightly touched with the same ; all the upper 
plumage at the roots is white ; the scapulars are also 
spotted with white ; but this cannot be perceived unless 
the feathers be blown aside ; tail, slightly forked, and, 
as well as the rump, jet black ; legs, vermilion, tinged 
with orange, and becoming blackish towards the toes; 
daws, black ; iris of the eye, dark red ; pupil, black. 
