74 BIRDS OF FIELD, FOREST AND PARK 



Crested Flycatcher. Yesterday I climbed 

 Hedgehog Hill for the first time in many years, 

 following the old cow-paths so often trod in my 

 boyhood. This w^as our favorite berrying ground 

 whither we went many times each summer to 

 gather pailfuls of the luscious blueberries and 

 raspberries which grew on the southern and 

 western slopes. But now the old pasture is 

 overgrown with sapling pine; and the crest of 

 .the hill, then heavily forested, is stripped bare, 

 the white ledges gleaming under the summer 

 sun. As I sat looking out over the broad valley 

 of the Androscoggin there came to my ears a 

 shrill note of interrogation, " pee-ups, pee-ups,^^ 

 which I instantly recognized, so characteristic 

 is it, although I had not heard it for many 

 months, as the call note of the Crested Fly- 

 catcher. Very soon I located him on the top- 

 most limb of a dead white birch, his prominent 

 crest plainly seen with the naked eye. Through 

 the glasses I got his colors, greenish-olive above 

 with brown washings on the head, chestnut on 

 the tail, and two distinct wing bars; the under 

 parts are sulphur-yellow, except the throat and 

 breast which are ashy-gray. This, our largest 

 Flycatcher, is more than nine inches long. It 

 is a wood-living bird, seldom seen about farms. 

 He, too, is a tyrant, given to bullying all comers 

 in his vicinity, as one would judge from the 

 bristling appearance of his crest when he sights 

 you. It is said a pair of them will often drive a 

 Downy or Hairy Woodpecker from the cozy 

 retreat which has been laboriously excavated as 

 a home for the brood, and settle down for the 



