88 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



abundant in parts of the mesquite prairies of southern Texas. "Near 

 Corpus Christi we once counted thirteen in sight down the road." But 

 the largest number they ever saw together was in an oak mott between 

 Corpus Christi and Brownsville, where these birds were roosting for 

 the night. "At sundown, when Mr. Bailey shot a rattlesnake at the 

 foot of a big oak in camp the report was followed by a roar and rattle 

 in the top of the tree and a great flock of scissortails arose and dispersed 

 in the darkness. They did not all leave the tree, apparently, even 

 then, although some of them may have returned to it, for when day- 

 light came to my surprise a large number of them straggled out of the 

 tree. How one oak top could hold so many birds seemed a mystery. 

 Before the flycatchers dispersed for the day the sky around the mott 

 was alive with them careering around in their usual acrobatic manner 

 making the air vibrate with shrill screams." 



Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice (1931a) witnessed the pretty picture of 

 a flock of these beautiful birds taking their evening bath ; she writes : 

 "On a day in mid September a dozen or more of these lovely birds 

 gathered in the little willows growing in a small pond; one by one 

 they swooped dow^n to the water, but came up without quite touching 

 it. Finally one brave bird splashed its breast into the water, where- 

 upon they all followed suit, sometimes singly, sometimes two or three 

 at a time, darting down quickly — a sudden dip into the water and 

 then up again. The colors on their sides and under their wings shone 

 pink and salmon and ruby in the late afternoon light. It was a rarely 

 beautiful sight — the exquisite birds in their fairy-like evolutions." 



The scissor-tailed flycatcher is a swift flier ; its powerful little wings 

 vibrate so rapidly, almost a blur to the hmnan eye, that its stream-lined 

 body is propelled through the air with speed enough to overtake 

 quickly the slower flying hawk or crow that ventures too near its terri- 

 tory; with vicious attacks from the dynamic little warrior the big 

 intruder is driven from the scene, only too glad to beat a hasty retreat. 



Voice. — ^Mrs. Bailey (1902a) records the notes uttered during its 

 flight maneuvers as an oft-repeated Tca-guee — ha-quee, Bendire 

 (1895) writes: "In all its movements on the wing it is extremely 

 graceful and pleasing to the eye, especially when fluttering slowly 

 from tree to tree on the rather open prairie, uttering its twittering 

 notes, which sound like the syllables 'psee-psee' frequently repeated, 

 and which resemble those of the Kingbird, but are neither as loud 

 nor as shrill; again, when chasing each other in play or anger, in 

 swift flight from tree to tree, when it utters a harsh note like 

 'thish-thish'." Mrs. Nice (1931a) writes: 



Like the Kingbirds, Crested Flycatcher and Wood Pewee the "Texas Bird 

 of Paradise" has a "twilight song" given before dawn during the nesting season. 

 I have only one record of it, obtained at Cashion June 2, 1929 where a pair of 

 these birds had a nest containing one egg. At 5:01 a. m. (26 minutes before 



