378 THE GREAT CRESTED ELYCATCHER. 



way down the perilous height, when lo, some un- 

 friendly bough knocks off my hat, and w4th a very un- 

 pleasant sensation somewhere about my left side, I note the 

 unlucky curves it makes adown the trunk. All my high 

 satisfaction over my achievement is sinking to the soles of 

 my boots, w^hen, as good luck will have it, the hat closes up 

 against the trunk, supported by an almost upright limb, 

 thus making the entire contents secure. As suddenly my 

 contentment comes back, and in a few moments, seated on 

 terra firma^ I examine my treasures. First the lining of the 

 nest. Dried leaves, fibers of bark, wool, hair, feathers, the 

 end of a squirrel's tail, and true to the never-failing custom 

 of this bird, cast-off snake s skin. I found a nest in a hollow 

 limb in an old orchard a few days since, with similar nest 

 linings — the material, however, consisting largely of stubble, 

 dried grasses, and pigs' bristles — the different linings placed 

 in the nest from year to year, lying one on the other like so 

 many sauce-plates in a pile, thus showing the number of 

 successive years the place had been occupied. Every lining 

 had the cast-off snake's skin. The eggs, generally 5, some 

 1.00 X •'^5, are strongly differentiated in color. The ground- 

 color being dark cream or buff, scratched and brushed in 

 every direction^ but more particularly lengthwise, as if wath 

 a pen or fine brush, wdth a rich brown and lilac. Sometimes 

 the markings are thicker on the large end, but generally 

 they extend equally all over, not infrequently running into 

 blotches. 



Wintering on the Florida Keys and in the West Indies, 

 this bird arrives in Western New York the first week in 

 May. Common, more especially to the woods, occasionally 

 residing in the orchard, it extends sparingly into New 

 England, rarely beyond the Connecticut Valley, west 

 to Eastern Kansas, northwestward to Cypress Hills in 



