Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/423



In the end of June 1832, I observed one of these birds a few miles below the city of Camden, flying over a meadow in pursuit of insects, after which it ahghted on the top of a small detached tree, where I followed it and succeeded in obtaining it. The bird appeared to have lost itself : it was unsuspicious, and paid no attention to me as I approached it. While on the wing, it frequently employed its long tail, when performing sudden turns in following its prey, and when alighted, it vibrated it in the man- ner of the Sparrow-Hawk. The bird fell to the ground wounded, and uttering a sharp squeak, which it repeated, and accompanied with smart clicks of its biU, when I went up to it. It lived only a few minutes, and from it the drawing transferred to the plate was made. This figure corresponds precisely with a skin shewn to me by my friend Charles Pickering, at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, except in the general tint of the plumage, his specimen, which he had received from South America, having been much faded.

Many years ago, while residing at Henderson in Kentucky, I had one of these birds brought to me which had been caught by the hand, and was nearly putrid when I got it. The person who presented it to me had caught it in the Barrens, ten or twelve miles from Henderson, late in Oc- tober, after a succession of white frosts, and had kept it more than a week. While near the city of Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, in August 1822, I saw two others high in the air, twittering in the manner of the King Bird ; but they disappeared to the westward, and I was un- able to see them again. These four specimens were the only ones I have seen in the United States, where individuals appear only at long intervals, and in far distant districts, as if they had lost themselves. I regret that I am unable to afford any information respecting their habits.

The bird has been placed on a plant which grows in Georgia, and which was drawn by my friend Bachman's sister.