108 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Then she would turn around and thrust her playful, comic counte- 

 nance out of the hole. The male would hover close to the orifice and 

 then return to the high perch from which he started his sally. Such 

 maneuvers were repeated over and over again until mating was com- 

 pleted; whereupon the female proceeded to gather material for nest 

 construction and take it into the woodpecker's cavity." 



The impression seems to prevail that passerine birds select new 

 mates each year, but evidently this is not always the case with the 

 crested flycatcher, which seems to show great attachment to its home 

 territory and, sometimes, to its former mate. Raymond J. Middle- 

 ton, of Norristown, Pa., has demonstrated by banding that one pair 

 has remained constant for three years: he says (1936) : "This pair of 

 birds was taken on each of the years 1934, 1935 and 1936 in the nest- 

 ing box while feeding half-grown young on the dates above given, 

 being mated together for three consecutive years. A147214 is now 

 at least 8 years old." 



Nesting. — The crested flycatcher is a hole-nesting species and will 

 use almost any cavity that is large enough to hold a rather bulky 

 nest and that has an opening large enough to admit of easy access. 

 It seems to show a preference for natural cavities in trees but has 

 probably always used to some extent the abandoned holes of the 

 larger woodpeckers, such as the flicker, the pileated woodpecker, the 

 red-headed woodpecker, and the red-bellied woodpecker. But since 

 it has become adapted to civilization, it does not seem to fear the 

 presence of man and has learned to nest in a variety of man-made 

 structures, often near human dwellings. Nesting boxes erected for 

 purple martins or other birds are most commonly used in such loca- 

 tions, but nests have been recorded also in hollow logs attached to 

 buildings, hollow posts, an old wooden pump, an old lard bucket, a 

 stove pipe or open gutter-pipe, or any old tin can or box of proper 

 size and suitably located. 



In my home territory, in southeastern Massachusetts, we have 

 always associated crested flycatchers with old orchards, where we 

 often saw or heard the birds as we were driving by or while exploring 

 them as favorite nesting sites for various birds. The}'^ seemed to 

 prefer orchards that were partially surrounded by deciduous woods 

 or were located on the outskirts of the woods; but often they were 

 found in orchards remote from such cover. They had no use for 

 young or well-pruned orchards; old neglected orchards with dead 

 trees, full of natural, rotted-out cavities were their choice. All the 

 nests that we have found, with one exception, were in apple trees in 

 such orchards. The cavities selected were in the trunks or main 

 branches; sometimes these were vertical or somewhat slanting, and 

 sometimes nearly or quite horizontal. 



