ARKANSAS KINGBIRD 61 



in the bunchgrass hills; he also saw a nest on a rocky cliff. J. A. 

 Munro (1919) says that in the Okanagan Valley "for two seasons, a 

 pair built in the eaves-trough of" his "house, directly over the vent. 

 Both years the eggs were destroyed by rain storms and washed into the 

 rain barrel. * * * Xhe residents along some of the country roads 

 nail up small soap or starch boxes on their gate-posts for the reception 

 of milk bottles, etc.; these are frequently used as nesting sites. I 

 have known them to build on a ledge above the kitchen door of a 

 farm house, which was opened and shut fifty times during the day. 

 Frequently they used abandoned Flicker holes, or the roughened, de- 

 cayed top of a fence post." 



Clarence Hamilton Kennedy (1915) has published an interesting 

 paper on the adaptability of this kingbird, illustrated with drawings 

 of nesting sites, including one in an old nest of Bullock's oriole. 



The Arkansas kingbird is almost as versatile in its selection of 

 nesting materials as it is adaptable in its choice of a site. Bendire 

 (1895) gives this general description of the nests: "Generally they are 

 compactly built structures, the foundation and outer walls being com- 

 posed of weed stems, fine twigs, plant fibers, and rootlets, intermixed 

 with wool, cocoons, hair, feathers, bits of string, cotton wood, milk- 

 weed, and thistle down, or pieces of paper, and lined with finer ma- 

 terials of the same kind." He says that a typical nest "measures 6 

 inches in outer diameter by 3 in depth; the inner cup is 3 inches wide 

 by 1% deep." 



Lt. C. A. H. McCauley (1877) describes a pretty nest, made by a 

 pair of these birds in a cottonwood tree in Texas, as follows: 



Using large quantities of the fibrous, coarse cotton of the tree, they had 

 matted this well for fully an inch above the limbs ; through which, well inter- 

 woven, ran bits of sage-brush, coarse grasses, and fine twigs, with a few dried 

 leaves. Above this part came finer grasses and small fibrous roots, whilst 

 for the interior they had apparently carefully selected choice bits of cotton, at 

 times arranged in strata, over which was buffalo-wool liberally placed and 

 neatly fastened and bound with finest threads. The lining of the interior was 

 unusually soft, being padded in a peculiar manner with the wool itself within. 

 In the homes of the two preceding species [swallow-tailed flycatcher and eastern 

 kingbird], the eggs rest upon the slender roots and threads which thickly 

 cover and bind together the underlying wool ; but this Flycatcher is more select ; 

 he fastens the tufts of wool below in such a way that the eggs have a resting- 

 place almost as soft as down, and the intertwining threads are scarcely visible. 



The nests that I have seen have been made of many of the 

 materials listed above by Bendire and constructed in much the same 

 manner. In all cases the interior has been thickly and warmly lined 

 with firmly matted, or felted, cow's hair, slieep's wool, cotton, or 

 cottonwood down. Cow's hair is easily obtainable about the cattle 

 ranches and is freely used. On the sheep ranges, the barbed-wire 

 fences are well decorated with wool, offering a bountiful supply of 



