PhainopepU WESTERN BIRDS 



ravages, although I have known these felines to take the 

 newly-hatched birds. 



Sometimes the Mockingbirds resent the coming of 

 the Phainopepla to their neighborhood and are most 

 disagreeable to them, and although these birds are by 

 no means docile themselves, twitching their long tails, 

 lowering their crests, and calling vigorously in protest, 

 they cannot withstand the Mockers, once those birds 

 have decided that they did not care to have them about. 

 I have known the Phainopeps to move the material of 

 their nest into another tree, and from that one to still 

 another, and then finally to leave the neighborhood be- 

 cause of bothersome Mockingbirds. 



I believe that two broods are often raised and by the 

 middle of August the birds are beginning to disappear, 

 to be seen no more until the last of April, or first of 

 May. One winter, however, one of these males visited 

 my yard during January. 



The males usually appear before the females and it is 

 a pretty sight to see three or four of these beauties 

 circling about each other, and even coming to blows, in 

 an effort to gain favor with a certain gray bit of feathers. 

 Sometimes after the nest is completed, or even when 

 there are young, an extra male will appear on the scene. 

 At such times the owner charges him vigorously and 

 sometimes a duel is fought in the air, the intruder always 

 being vanquished and departing to new fields. 



Stately, dignified, beautiful, and vivacious — these 

 Silky Flycatchers are ever welcome visitors. Occasion- 

 ally a bird stays about all winter. Such was the case in 

 my own garden when a male first appeared in January, 

 1920, and for months came daily to my bird bath and to 

 feast on the pepper berries. For a day or two in January 

 a gray female was about. This male was a rusty black, 

 especially his body, which is thought by some scientists 

 to be an arrested plumage, rather than a winter one. 



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