404 Home Nature-Study Course. 



"what" and then chuckles, but some have spelled the note " wheep." 

 It is sufficiently startling after one has heard it never to be forgotten. 

 The great-crest has the strange habit of putting a cast snake skin 

 about its nest. The reason for this probably lies thousands of years 

 back in the history of the species and has nothing to do with present 

 day conditions. A species of flycatcher in South America and an- 

 other in Arizona have a similar habit ; and they all probably inherited 

 this habit from some ancestral bird, which perhaps devised this 

 method for protecting its nest from some creature dreadfully afraid 

 of snakes, like the monkey. The great-crest builds its nest in a 

 hollow limb; its eggs are cream white, streaked lengthwise with 

 chocolate ; it winters in southern Florida and Central America. 



82. Have you ever seen the great-crest? If so, describe the appearance. 



83. Have you ever found a nest with a snake skin? If so, describe it. 



The Phoebe. — This friendly bird which builds its nest in the piazza 

 or under the eaves, or on the rafters of the shed or barn, or on the 

 timber vmder the bridge that crosses the creek, is the most familiar 

 to us of all the flycatchers. Its sweet, dissyllabic song is beloved 

 by every boy and girl in the coimtry, and is listened to with much 

 more pleasure than that accorded to many a longer and more pre- 

 tentious warble. The phoebe-note of the chickadee in spring is often 

 confused with that of the true phoebe. The difference between these 

 songs should be learned. A more beneficent bird than the phoebe 

 does not exist from the human standpoint, for the phoebes spend all 

 their time catching noxious insects; especially do they love to hover 

 over the water and destroy mosquitoes; or if they have their nests 

 near the bam, they spend their energies in catching the flies which 

 annoy cattle. Ninety-three per cent of the food of the phoebe is 

 insects, and the remainder berries of wild plants which are of no use 

 to us. The phoebe winters in the tropics and does not arrive here 

 imtil after the robins and the bluebirds. 



84. Describe the phoebe by the outline for bird study in the field. 



85. Have you ever seen the nest of the phcebe? If so, describe it and tell where 

 it was situated. Of what materials is it made? The color of the eggs? 



86. Do you know the note of the phoebe from the phcebe song of the chickadee 

 when you hear either? 



87. Why should the phoebe go south winters and the chickadee stay here? 



88. Why should the phoebes be induced to build in cow barns and of what use 

 are they to farmers? 



The Least Flycatcher or the Chebec. — This mite of energy has a love 

 for civilization almost as marked as that of the kingbird or phoebe. 

 It particularly likes orchards, where it takes its place on some top- 



