LI 



THE BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER 



NEAR our grapevine playhouse, where I became ac- 

 quainted with so many of my birds, early one spring 

 there appeared a little stranger that I at first mistook for 

 a small bluebird. I watched him carefully and finally 

 got near enough to see that he could not possibly be a 

 bluebird, at least not the kind with which I was familiar, 

 for instead of his breast being red-brown and his belly 

 white, his entire underparts are whitish gray. More than 

 that, his tail was black, bordered with white, and even the 

 wings were brownish black, especially toward the tips, 

 which were bordered with blue-gray. 



The day was fine and in the open places near the woods 

 there were many swarms of small flies or gnats. This 

 little stranger was busily engaged in catching these in- 

 sects. He would fly back and forth through the danc- 

 ing swarm and every time he caught one or more of them. 

 Evidently he was hungry, after his long journey from the 

 great Southland, or possibly he especially liked these gnats. 

 At any rate he spent a full half hour catching gnats with- 

 out stopping to rest for a moment. 



I asked mother what this strange new bird could be, 

 but she was not able to tell me, so the next day we went 

 to the woods together to see if we could find the little 



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