GREAT-CRESTED FLYCATCHER 255 



Great-crested Flycatcher: Myiarchus crmitm. 



(Plate XIII. p. 258.) 



Crest and back olive ; throat and breast gray ; helly lemon yel- 

 low, tail showing- bright reddish brown in flight. Length, 

 aboiit 9 inches. 



Geographic Distribution. — Eastern United States and south- 

 ern Canada ; breeds from Florida to New Brunswick and 

 Manitoba ; winters from southern Florida to South America. 



The Flycatchers are no songsters, but may be 

 known by 'their calls. The Great Crest, like most 

 birds, has moments of private meditation and 

 soliloquy, but he usually whistles from a treetop 

 in^the woods so loudly you can hear him from the 

 highway. ' Whuh\ loliuree^ lohit-ichit^^ he calls in 

 such a hearty, healthy tone of satisfaction that it 

 stirs one's blood. 



The force and originality of this tribal call note 

 is not belied by the habits of the birds. Hardy 

 and pugnacious. Colonel Goss says they fight 

 fiercely for their mates, and have a habit of pluck- 

 ing the tail feathers of their rivals to disfigure 

 them in the eyes of their lady loves ! But this 

 is not all. When the war is over, the birds build 

 in a hole in a tree trunk, like so many Wood- 

 peckers ; and for nest lining they get the cast-off 

 skins of snakes ! Whatever may be the historic 

 reason for this peculiar habit, the lamented Mr. 

 Frank Bolles watched two nests in which the skin 

 was apparently used to scare away intruders. The 

 morning he found the first nest it had one e^g and 



