358 HISTORY OF THE 



same time making the warblers and other birds capture those 

 which remain concealed in such places. The Kingbird, in seiz- 

 ing a flying insect, flies in a sort of half flitting hover, and 

 seizes it with a sharp snap of the bill. Sometimes he descends 

 from his perch, and captures a grasshopper that has just taken 

 a short flight, and occasionally seizes one that is crawling up 

 some tall stalk of grass. Those farmere who keep bees dislike 

 this bird, because of his bad habit of eating as many of those in 

 sects as show themselves in the neighborhood of his nest; but 

 they should remember that the general interests of agriculture 

 are greater than those of a hive of bees." 



Their nests are usually placed on branches of trees, in open 

 and exposed situations, six to twenty feet from the ground; in 

 treeless localities, in almost any available place; a rather bulky, 

 flat structure, composed of stems of weeds and grasses, and lined 

 with hair-like rootlets, and often, woven in with the same, bits of 

 rags and twine. Eggs three to six, usually four, .90x.68. They 

 vary greatly in size, and measurements as high as 1.05x.75 

 have been given. (Eidgway says . 95x. 69.) A set of four eggs, 

 taken at Neosho Falls, only measure: .78x.64, .79x.65, .80x. 66, 

 .82x.67; white to creamy white, thinly spotted with purple to 

 dark reddish brown; in form, ovate, 



Tyrannus verticalis Say. 



ARKANSAS KINGBIRD. 

 PLATE XXIII. 



Summer resident; common in the middle and western parts 

 of the State. Arrive about the first of May; begin laying the 

 last of May; return in September. 



B. 126. R. 306. C. 870. G. 151, 170. U. 447. 



Habitat. Western United States; east to Missouri and west- 

 ern Minnesota; occasionally straggling far eastward; south in 

 winter to Guatemala. 



Sp. Char. "The four exterior quills attenuated very gently at the end, the 

 first most so; third and fourth quills longest; second and fifth successively a 

 little shorter. Tail slightly forked; bill shorter than head. Crown, sides of 

 head above the eyes, nape and sides of neck pale lead color or ash gray; a con- 

 cealed crest on the crown, vermilion in the center and yellowish before and be- 



