EASTERN PHOEBE 151 



of its kind * * * whose big chuckle-head and high shoulders 

 gave him the look of an old man, bent with age." 



Ralph Hoffmann (1904) says: "The sideways sweep of the tail 

 is a characteristic action by which the bird may always be identified; 

 in the old birds the absence of wing bars also serves to distinguish 

 it from the Wood Pewee. Young birds have dull wing bars, but they 

 cannot refrain long from making a suggestive movement of the 

 loose-hung tail." 



Enemies. — Perhaps the most serious of the phoebe's enemies are 

 the parasites that often infest the nests and debilitate or kill the 

 young birds. Manley B. Townsend (1926) speaks of a nest "contain- 

 ing four newly hatched young." "A week later," he says, "on exam- 

 ining the nest, I found only the desiccated bodies of the young birds. 

 The nest was swarming with parasitic insects." Lewis O. Shelley 

 (1936a) adds his testimony on this subject: "The first nestings are 

 invariably pretty free from parasitic pests, but second nestings may 

 be literally overrun with mites and possible third broods will often 

 be forced prematurely into leaving the nest. I am of the opinion 

 that mites invariably prevent Phoebes from raising a third brood." 



Harold S. Peters (1933) found the mite Liponyssiis syVviarum in 

 the plumage of a phoebe sent to him by P. A. Stewart from Ohio. 



Frederic H. Kennard (MS.) adds the raccoon to the phoebe's ene- 

 mies. He says: "May 2, 1925. A raccoon broke up our phoebe's 

 nest on the post of our woodshed last night. Eggs and nest lay sev- 

 eral feet from the bottom of the post this morning. I had always 

 supposed a screech owl was guilty in past years, but on making a close 

 examination today, I found claw marks and a hair from a coon's 

 belly stuck to the bark of the post." 



William Brewster (1936) describes thus a dramatic incident in the 

 life of a phoebe : 



A male Pigeon Hawk suddenly appeared from we hardly knew whither and 

 with the speed of an arrow glided on set wings, on a slightly declining plane, 

 directly at the Phoebe. 



That trustful little bird, swaying at ease on his slender perch, seemed so 

 wholly unconscious of his fearful peril that we all thought him lost, but when 

 the Falcon was within a foot of him he did the only thing that could possibly 

 have saved him, viz. dropped like a ripe fruit nearly to the ground and then 

 started directly for the barn cellar. The Hawk overshot him scarce more 

 than four feet and, stopping and turning about with truly marvelous quickness, 

 followed and overtook him before he had gone three yards but the Phoebe 

 doubled short and abruptly and the little Falcon, apparently disgusted at his 

 ill success, darted off down the hill-side towards the eastward, giving us a fine 

 view of his ashy-blue back. Only a few minutes later the Phoebe was back on 

 the same perch again. The whole episode was most impressive — happening 

 as it did, at what might be called the very threshold of the Phoebe's home and 

 during a rarely beautiful and peaceful May afternoon. 



