File:Report on the birds of Pennsylvania - with special reference to the food habits, based on over four thousand stomach examinations (1890) (20641900746).jpg

Title: Report on the birds of Pennsylvania : with special reference to the food habits, based on over four thousand stomach examinations
Identifier: commercialpoultr11 (find matches)
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Warren, Benjamin Harry, 1858-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Harrisburg : E. K. Meyers, State Printer
Contributing Library: Penn State University
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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118 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. Genus ELANOIDES Vieillot. Elanoides forficatus (Linn.). Swallow-tailed Kite. Description. i! Bill rather small and moderately stout and narrow ; feet small but stout; claws short but strongly curved ; wings very long and pointed ; tail long and deeply forked. On the wing this hawk looks and moves like a huge swallow. Head, neck, band across rump, basal portion of secondaries and entire lower parts pure white; interscapulars and lesser wing-coverts purplish-black ; rest of back, wings, and tajl slaty-black. Bill blue black ; legs and feet dull bluish-yellow ; iris brown. Length variable ; a female before me measures 24 inches long ; wing 17 ; lateral tail feathers 12; inches. Habitat.—Southern United States, especially in the interior, from Pennsylvania and Minnesota southward, through Central and South Americii; westward to the great4)lains. Casual eastward to southern New England. The Swallow-tailed Kite, or " Wasp-hawk,' as it is commonly called in Florida, where it is common, is a very rare and in'egular visitor in Penn- sylvania. A specimen in the museum of the Linnaean Society, at Lan- caster city, was captured many years ago in Lancaster county. Prof. H. J. Iloddy obtained one May 27, 1885, in Perry county; and a strag- fi:ler was also recently found in Allegheny county by Mr. R. C Wren- shall, of Pittsburgh. In the stomachs of five of these kites which I killed in Florida in March and April, 1885, were found several kinds of insects. According to different writers they feed principally on grass- hoppers, beetles, caterpillars, small snakes, lizards and frogs. This hawk rarely alights on the ground; its food is captured and eaten when on the wing. Genus ICTINIA Vieillot. Ictinia mississippiensis (Wils.). MisKisHippi Kite. Desckiption. "General form short .nd compact Bill short, tip emarginatod ; wings long, pointed ; tail rather short, emarginated ; tarsi short. **Adult.—Upper parts of body dark lead color, nearly bhick on rump; head and under parts cinereous, darkest on abdomen ; quills and tail brownish-black ; * * tips of secondaries ashy-white ; a longitudinal stripe on each web of primaries chest- nut rufous." (Length of male about 14 inches; extent about 3<); female a little larger.) —B. B. of N. A. Habitat.—Southern United States, southward from South Carolina on the coast, and Wisconsin and Iowa in the interior to Mexico. Rare straggler in Pennsylvania. T have never met with it in this state. The only specimen that has been taken Iktc, so far as I can learn, within the past twenty years, was captured in Perry county by Prof. H. J. Iloddy, September, 1886. COLOR PLATE Plate 28. t
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<» Me&dow Lark. 1. Males; 2. Female,

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