THE BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER 321 



stranger. Surely enough he was at almost the same spot, 

 feeding on flies. We managed to creep up close enough 

 to see that this bird was not a bright blue, but a gray 

 blue. 



When hunting he would fly a short distance this way and 

 a short distance the other, jerking his tail up and down as 

 if it was hard work to keep his balance. In fact, this habit 

 of jerking his tail up and down while flying is one of the 

 easiest ways to identify the blue-gray flycatcher, for few 

 other birds do this. When he alighted, it was on the tip 

 of a twig, and he often hung to the last bunch of leaves 

 rather than light on the twig itself. This is another char- 

 acteristic of his. 



I think I have never seen one of these birds light well 

 back on a limb where he could secure a good foothold, tho 

 others say that he does so. As a result, when he alights 

 on the end of a twig, he has to keep jerking his tail up 

 and down to preserve his balance, and he even finds it 

 necessary to droop his wings to help him cling to the twig 

 on which he roosts. He seldom if ever alights on the 

 ground even to drink and I have never seen him take a 

 bath. When thirsty he sometimes sips the drops of dew 

 from the end of the twigs or of the leaves. 



The nest is built of very frail material, and tho the 

 bird is scarcely larger than a house wren the nest seems 

 small even for so tiny a bird. It is built mostly of dried 

 leaves and bud scales, etc., tied together by the silken fibre 

 of plants and flowers and the inner bark of weeds. Lichens 

 are fastened on the outside, while the lining is of moss, 

 down, and horse hairs. It is firmly attached to two twigs, 

 usually near the end of a limb. These birds, living as they 

 do on small insects, many of which breed in the water. 



