26 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ground, loosely associated, showing little tendency to move in unison, 

 although individual birds take short flights from time to time. Occa- 

 sionally, however, they become more active and restless. For example, 

 on August 15, 1936, I saw a gathering of 15 or 20, flying about over 

 a meadow just before sunset. They were not noisy but gave fre- 

 quently a subdued z-z-z-z-zee. Sometimes they flew out in groups 

 of three or four, making swoops at each other; sometimes they 

 perched for a moment, a few together, in the top of a tree, their 

 feathers drawn in close, and their necks stretched out, posturing as 

 cedar waxwings often do. In making long flights the wings were 

 carried backward in full, free strokes — almost as far as a robin's. 

 When they flew thus, as they did most of the time, they moved 

 through the air very rapidly and lost all resemblance to kingbirds. 

 Occasionally they flew for short distances with the characteristic 

 mincing fluttering. 



P. A. Taverner and B. H. Swales (1907) describe an impressive 

 flight at Point Pelee, Ontario, Canada. They say: "In 1907, when 

 we arrived August 24, Kingbirds were very common and distributed 

 all over the Point and the adjoining mainland. Each day brought 

 more, until by the 27th there were a greater number of Kingbirds 

 present than any of us had ever seen at one time before. Most of 

 them were in the waste clearings near the end of the Point, where at 

 times we saw flocks numbering hundreds of individuals. The dead 

 trees scattered about the edges of these clearings were at all times 

 more or less filled with them and it was no uncommon sight to see 

 from fifteen to twenty in one small tree." 



To quote again from A. F. Skutch's notes : "The southward migra- 

 tion of kingbirds passes through Central America during September 

 and the first half of October. In 1930 I saw more kingbirds during 

 the autumn at Tela, on the northern coast of Honduras, than I have 

 seen in any other locality. Here I kept watch over a roost of king- 

 birds during the southward migration. The site they selected as 

 their sleeping place was a patch of tall elephant grass, higher than 

 a man's head and very dense, which already was the nightly shelter 

 of myriads of small seed-eaters of four species, of the resident 

 Lesson's orioles and of the flocks of orchard orioles that had ar- 

 rived somewhat earlier. It was a surprise to find the kingbirds, 

 those creatures of high and open spaces, consorting in slumber with 

 the humble seed-eaters, yet all got along most amicably together. 

 The new arrivals were silent among all that chattering throng. At 

 dusk I would see them hovering on beating wings, or moving slowly 

 between the tall grass stalks, often circling and turning, more rarely 

 making a short dart into the open space above, picking up a few 

 final morsels before they settled down in sleep. Because of their 



