ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF OUR BIRDS. 
583 
tr>, but, when pressed by hunger, has been known to attack Partridges, Plovers, 
and even Teal. 
Food: Of two specimens examined, one had in its stomach four, and the other 
two meadow-mice I saw one capture a striped gopher fSpermo- 
philes tridecem lineatusj, and another, a Red-winged Blackbird. Insects, espe¬ 
cially grasshoppers, frogs, small quadrupeds and reptiles fCoues). Mice and the 
Rice-bird in the south (Wilson). Small birds, mice, occasionally poultry, snakes 
and grasshoppers (Cooper). Field-mice (Samuels). Swamp Spari-ow, Chipping 
Sparrow and Virginia Rail (Audubon). Small birds and mice (Mr. Gunn). An in¬ 
discriminate feeder upon snakes, fish, and even worms; I took two green snakes 
from the stomach of one of them (Downes). Mice, lizards, serpents and other 
reptiles, frogs, and occasionally poultry (De Kay). I have lately seen this bird 
digging open the ridges formed by Scalopus aquations, and I once saw the bird 
overtake and kill the beast, but it did not eat it (Charles C. Abbott, Am. Nat., 
IV, g77). 
165. Elanoxdes forficatus (Linn.), Coues. SWALLOW-TAILED KITE. 
Group I. Class b. 
_ This species is rare in the eastern part of the state, but is said to occur more 
frequently along the Mississippi, where it is a summer resident. It is extremely 
swift and expert in its aerial movements, but I find no records which indicate 
that it is ever destructive to small birds. 
Food: Cicadas, lizards and small gi’een snakes (Wilson). Snakes, lizards and 
other reptiles (De Kay). Catches insects over the burning fields of the south 
(Major Le Conte). They feed upon dragon-flies, but their principal food is grass¬ 
hoppers, grass-caterpillars, pupae of locusts and the locusts themselves, snakes, 
lizards and frogs (Audubon). Grasshoppers and the grubs of wasps, to obtain 
which it carries the nest to a tree and picks out the grubs at its leisure (Dresser). 
Snakes, particularly a little green one (LeptopUis stivacBj, and the different 
species of Eiitoe.nia; later in summer largely insects, especially neuroptera 
(Ridgway). It preys upon swarms of bees (R. Owen, Ibis, 1860, p. 24). 
Ictinia Mississippiensis has been noted in the state, but later observations 
have not detected it. 
. 166. Accipiter fuscus (Gm.), Bp. SHARP-SHINNED HAWK; PIGEON 
HAWK. Group 11. Class c. 
This spirited little Hawk is common during the fall migrations, and a few are 
summer residents. Wilson states that it flies with almost unaccountable veloc¬ 
ity, and seems to take its prey by surprise or by mere force of flight. “Many 
have been the times,”’ says Audubon, “ wlien watching this vigilant, active and 
industrious bird, I have seen it plunge headlong among the brier patches of 
one of our old fields, in defiance of all thorny obstacles; and, passing through, 
emerge on the other side, bearing off, with exultation, in its sharp claws, a Finch 
or Sparrow which it had suiqu-ised when at rest.” The same writer has wit¬ 
nessed two or three of these Hawks, acting in concert, kill and devour a Golden¬ 
winged Woodpecker. It appears to be chiefly a woodland species, but sometimes 
comes about dwellings for domestic pigeons and young chickens. Nuttall knew 
of one of these Hawks which carided off thirty or forty chickens from a single 
yard. * 
Food: The single specimen which I have examined had nothing in its stomach. 
The Scarlet Tanager and other small birds, lizards and mice (Wilson). They 
