‘When it plunges into the water in pursuit of a fish, it sometimes proceeds deep enough to disappear for an instant. The surge caused by its descent is so great as to make the spot around it present the appearance of a mass of foam. On rising with its prey, it is seen holding it in the manner represented in the plate. It mounts a few yards into the air, shakes the water from its plumage, squeezes the fish with its talons, and immediately proceeds towards its nest, to feed its young, or to a tree, to devour the fruit of its industry in peace. When it has satisfied its hunger, it does not, like other hawks, stay perched until hunger again urges it forth, but usually sails about at a great height over the neighboring waters. ‘The fish hawk has a great attachment to the tree to which it carries its prey, and will not abandon it, unless frequently disturbed, or shot at whilst feeding there. It shows the same attachment to the tree on which it has built its first nest, and returns to it year after year.’ _The Swallow-tailed Hawk._――This beautiful kite breeds and passes the summer in the warmer parts of the United States, and is also probably resident in all tropical and temperate America, migrating into the southern as well as the northern hemisphere. In the former, according to Viellot, it is found in Peru, and as far as Buenos Ayres; and though it is extremely rare to meet with this species as far as the latitude of forty degrees in the Atlantic states, yet, tempted by the abundance of the fruitful valley of the Mississippi, individuals have been seen along that river as far as the Falls of St. Anthony, in the forty-fourth degree of north latitude. Indeed, according to Fleming, two stragglers have even found their devious way to the strange climate of Great Britain. Illustration: Swallow-tailed Hawk. They appear in the United States about the close of April or beginning of May, and are very numerous in the Mississippi territory, twenty or thirty being sometimes visible at the same time, often collecting locusts and other large insects, which they are said to feed on from their claws while flying; at times also seizing upon the nests of locusts and wasps, and like the honey-buzzard, devouring both the insects and their larvæ. Snakes and lizards are their common food in all parts of America. In the month of October they begin to retire to the south, at which season Mr. Bartram observed them in great numbers assembled in Florida, soaring steadily at great elevations for several days in succession, and slowly passing towards their winter quarters along the Gulf of Mexico.[48] Other hawks in the United States are the _Sharp-shinned_, the _Great-footed_ or _Duck_, the _Pigeon_, _Cooper’s White-tailed_, _Red-tailed_, _Broad-winged_, _Mississippi Kite_, _Black_, _Marsh_, _Stanley’s_, _Red-shouldered_, _Ash-colored_, and _Slate-colored Hawks_.