Swallow-tailed Hawk

Swallow-tailed Hawk [now Swallow-tailed Kite]
Falco furcatus [now Elanoides forficatus]
Folio edition, plate 72

“The flight of this elegant species of Hawk is singularly beautiful and protracted . . . . Gliding along in easy flappings, it rises in wide circles to an immense height, inclining in various ways its deeply forked tail, to assist the direction of its course, dives with the rapidity of lightning, and, suddenly checking itself, reascends, soars away, and is soon out of sight.”

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America(Edinburgh: A. Black [et al.], 1831), vol. 1, p. 368.

View bird in National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.