EASTERN KINGBIRD 17 



According to Bendire (1895), "the male assists in the construction 

 of the nest, and to some extent in the duties of incubation. He re- 

 lieves the female from time to time to allow her to feed, guards the 

 nesting site, and is usually perched on a limb close by, where he has 

 a good view of the surroundings." 



A most unusual nesting site for the eastern kingbird is reported, in 

 a letter to Mr. Bonl, by Capt. H. L. Harllee, of Florence, S. C. This 

 pair of birds built a nest and laid a set of eggs in a gourd that was 

 suspended from a pole at the edge of a yard in Beaufort County. 

 The gourd, such as are commonly used by purple martins in the 

 South, happened to have large openings on two opposite sides, which 

 gave the birds convenient entrance and exit, as well as some visibility 

 while on the nest. 



Eggs. — [Author's note: The eastern kingbird lays three to five 

 eggs to a set; three is the commonest number and five decidedly un- 

 common or rare. The eggs are commonly ovate, with variations to- 

 ward short-ovate or elongate-ovate or, rarely, elliptical-ovate. They 

 are only slightly glossy. The ground color is pure white, creamy 

 white (most commonly) , or pinkish white, and very rarely decidedly 

 pink. As a rule they are quite heavily and irregularly marked with 

 large and small spots, or small blotches, but some are quite evenly 

 sprinkled with fine dots. The markings are in various shades of 

 brown, "chestnut-brown," "chocolate," "liver brown," "claret brown," 

 or "cinnamon," with underlying spots and blotches of different shades 

 of "Quaker drab," "brownish drab," "heliotrope gray," or "lavender." 

 Very rarely an ^^g is nearly immaculate. The measurements of 50 

 eggs average 24.2 by 17.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the four 

 extremes measure 27.9 by 18.3, 23.6 by 19.8, 22.1 by 18.o, and 23.9 by 

 16.2 millimeters.] 



Young. — Hatched from what some oologists consider the most 

 beautiful of eggs, the young kingbirds remain in the nest for about 

 2 weeks. Gilbert H. Trafton (1908) gives the time as 10 to 11 days, 

 and A. D. Wliedon (1906) as about 18 days. Most writers, however, 

 agree on 13 to 14 days as the average time. 



Francis Hobart Herrick (1905) studied the nest life of the kingbird 

 in detail from a blind placed close to a nest which, with the limb 

 supporting it, he had moved a short distance to facilitate observa- 

 tion. The nest contained four young birds, two of them transferred 

 from another nest. "Writing of the day when the nestlings were 10 

 days old, he says : 



In the space of four hours * * * the parents made one hundred and eight 

 visits to the nest and fed their brood ninety-one times. In this task the female 

 bore the larger share, bringing food more than fifty times, although the male 

 made a good showing, having a record of thirty-seven visits to his credit. 



