128 TlMEHRl 
wings are very long, strong and pointed, giving rapid 
flight to the species. In colour, it is of a deep slate- 
black above, passing into pale slate-blue or grey On the 
head, while the under side is of a bluish grey, paler on 
the throat. The tail is nearly black, marked with two 
conspicuous white bars, a third being hidden foy # the 
covering feathers underneath. In the young birds, the 
colour is more black all over the upper part of the body, 
edged and streaked with white, and the under parts 
more or less barred with the same colour. The eyes are 
of a deep, piercing, fiery red. 
This common falcon-kite is met with all over the colony, 
and more especially along the creeks and the sheltered 
parts of the great rivers, where it will be seen perching 
singly — though its mate seems never to be far distant — 
on the high branches and chiefly on the projecting dead 
limbs, from which it is able to keep a better look out. 
About the open clearings and deserted cassava fields of 
the Indians, this hawk, like so many others, will very 
frequently be found, perched on the top of the dead 
trees, every now and then darting swiftly at the various 
inse6ls on which it delights to feed. Beetles par- 
ticularly seem to furnish its choicest morsels, for parts of 
these inse6ls will almost invariably be found in them. 
The brighter coloured inse6ls (like Chlorida festzva, 
which is so common among the cassava in the Indian 
clearings), which no doubt are more easily seen from a 
distance, seem to be those chiefly preyed on, and 
masses of their bright wing cases will at times be 
taken from the stomach of these birds. Grass- 
hoppers, locusts, cicadas, ants, bees and wasps, and the 
grubs from their nests, are not refused however, though 
