36 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUIVI 



forbids shooting, under penalty of $10.00 fine. My only chance was for the bird 

 to light on the Government property — Fort Moultrie grounds — six yards away, 

 where I could not be molested. I did not have long to wait before the male 

 which was perched on the flag pole flew into the Government lands where I at 

 once shot it. Upon my shooting the bird its mate flew directly over me, and I 

 soon had it stowed carefully away in my collecting basket. The nest which was 

 found in the private yard, close to the flag pole, was built in the top of a small live 

 oak tree about twenty feet high. It is a very frail structure, and is composed 

 of sticks, jesamine vines, and lined apparently with oleander rootlets. One article 

 in its composition which is quite curious is a long piece of flshing cord. The 

 nest contained two eggs, and upon dissecting the female I found one more egg 

 which would have been laid the following day. It will be seen that all the speci- 

 mens of the Gray Kingbird which have been actually taken in South Carolina were 

 from this famous Island — a favorite summer resort for the people of Charleston. 



As noted above, Mr. Wayne was in error in this last statement, for 

 the specimen seen by Professor Gadsden in the grounds of the Porter 

 Military Academy, between 1881 and 1885, was taken. Indeed, par- 

 ticular significance attaches to the P. M. A. specimen, for, since it was 

 not stated by Audubon that Bachman took any of the College of 

 Charleston campus birds. Prof. Gadsden's specimen was the first one 

 secured in South Carolina. The species has not been observed, or at 

 least there is no record of it, since the May 1927 bird seen by Mr. 

 Wayne and myself. 



The history of the gray kingbird in Georgia is similar. One speci- 

 men has been taken, two have been seen, and there are two definite nest- 

 ing records. The first instance is that of a specimen secured by Isaac 

 Arnow at St. Marys (near the Florida line) on August 1, 1905, and 

 recorded by T. D. Perry (1911) . Sight records made by Walter Hoxie 

 on the Savannah River (South Carolina State line) are vague and 

 without dates. The other was an observation of Gilbert R. Rossignol, 

 at the Quarantine Station, mouth of the Savannah River, June 8, 1933, 

 this having been already mentioned here. The two sight records, viz., 

 those of Hoxie and Rossignol, were within an ace of being South Caro- 

 lina records, as well as Georgia observations. 



H. B. Bailey (1883) gives some notes on the nesting in Georgia but 

 mentions only one instance specifically. This concerns a set of eggs 

 collected by Dr. S. W. Wilson, "between the years 1853 and 1865." That 

 more than one breeding record was concerned is evidenced by his state- 

 ment that the gray kingbird nests "chiefly on St. Simon's Island and 

 in Wayne and Mcintosh Counties." This leaves a good deal to be 

 desired in the way of precise information, but one can be certain of the 

 nest found by Dr. Wilson if nothing else. Probably the other records 

 will always be shrouded in obscurity, which is unfortunate. Mr. 

 Bailey states that the species "nests on the horizontal branches of oak 

 trees, near the top, and loosely constructed of twigs 'with little or no 

 lining' ; eggs always three." The most recent instance of the breeding 



