Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...

BIRDS OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 105
trees, and after some difficulty secured it. The bird, an ad'ult male,
rested on the top of a low shrub, balancing in the wind, but flew
before I came within range to circle and sail gracefully for several
minutes before it chose to rest. Finally, blown by a gust of wind, it
miscalculated its distance in passing me and fell at a long shot. On
the following day two were found resting in the top limbs of low
trees in an open marsh grown with saw grass on the border of
Laguna Wall, 30 kilometers farther west. When flushed they
swung about lightly and gracefully, seldom more than a few yards
from the ground. One was taken and preserved as a skeleton. The
Lengua Indians called this species Kdbuko.
At the Estancia Los Yngleses near Lavalle, Buenos Aires, the
alcon hlanco. as this kite is Imown, was foimd on October 27, and
two males were taken. The first was observed as it hovered in the
wind 15 or 18 meters from the ground, stationary above one spot
of grass that it watched intently. At a hasty glance its light colora-
tion gave it the semblance of a gull. Another was secured from a
perch in the top of an ombu tree where it rested in a part of a
grove sheltered from wind. In one of these birds, apparently full
gape and base of
adult, the cere and upper mandible were chamois ;
lower mandible slightly grayer than primuline yellow ; remainder of
bill black; iris orange chrome (verging toward orange rufous);
tarsus and toes slightly duller than apricot yellow; claws black.
The other male, though fully adult in other respects, retained an
indication of the dark spotting at the tips of some of the rectrices
that is found in juvenal plumage.
Bangs and Penard®" have described the white-tailed Idte from
North America as Elanus leucurus majusculus (type-locality,
Florida) on the basis of slightly greater size. The difference between
birds from North America and those from South America,
while slight from the series examined in the U. S. National Museum,
seems constant. A small series from Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay,
Argentina, and Chile seem uniform in size and coloration. Measurements
of South American specimens that I secured as noted
above follows:
No.