SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 
75 
SUBGENUS VII. — ELANUS , SAVIGNV. 
16 . FALCO FURCATUS. SWALLOW-TAILED HAWK. 
WILSON, PL. LI. FIG. II. MALE. EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 
This very elegant species inhabits the southern 
districts of the United States in summer ; is seldom 
seen as far north as Pennsylvania, 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 colour at will, also furnishes the swallow- 
tailed hawk with a favourite morsel. These lizards are 
sometimes of the most brilliant light green, in a few 
minutes change to a dirty clay colour, 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 extre- 
mity of the branches, where both become the prey of 
the hawk.* 
The swallow-tailed hawk retires to the south in 
October, at which season, Mr Bartram informs me, they 
* 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 colour is surprising, and not generally known to 
naturalists. 
