196 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



think it imi)ortant to yell more or less about it. 

 His attacks upon his enemies are accompanied 

 by incessant screaming, and even when he dashes 

 from his perch on telegraph wire or fence post 

 to capture a passing insect, he is likely to an- 

 nounce his success bv a shriek of victory as he 



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i^hoioby Mrs. Granville Pike Courtesy of Nat. Asso. Aud.Soc. 



ARKANSAS KINGBIRD 



Through eastern Oregon it commonly nests on a crosspiece of 

 a telephone or telegraph pole 



sails back to his station. In these aerial perform- 

 ances he keeps his tail spread to its full width, 

 thereby showing plainly the white outer feathers. 

 It seems natural enough that such a bird should 



prefer the open country, where he can have 

 plenty of room for his operations, but " through 

 eastern Oregon, where trees are scarce, the 

 Arkansas Kingbird commonly nests on a cross- 

 piece of a telephone or telegraph pole. At Ash- 

 land and some of the other towns in northern 

 Oregon they prefer a similar site along the busy 

 street. A farm-building or even a gate-post, 

 wherever two beams come together so the nest 

 can be wedged in, is not an unusual site." (W. 

 L. Finley. MS.) 



This bird has been accused in California of 

 eating honeybees to an injurious extent. It 

 was said that the bird lingered near the hive and 

 snapped up the honey-ladened bees as they re- 

 turned from the field. This statement is not 

 borne out by the facts. Its animal food is open 

 to adverse criticism in only one point — the use- 

 ful beetles amounting to 55^ per cent. But even 

 if it be admitted that the destruction of these is 

 harmful to man's interests, the amount of damage 

 is so small as to be completely overbalanced by 

 the good done in other directions. The vegetable 

 food, which is less than 10 per cent, of the entire 

 food of the bird, is of so little economic impor- 

 tance that it may be dismissed without further 

 comment. On the whole the Arkansas Kingbird 

 is one of the most useful birds in the region 

 where it is found. 



CRESTED FLYCATCHER 

 Myiarchus crinitus (Linnccus) 



A. O. U. Number 452 See Color Plate 67 



Other Names. — Great Crested Flycatcher ; Great 

 Crested Yellow-bellied Flycatcher ; Snake-skin Bird. 



General Description. — Length, 8' i inches. Upper 

 parts, olive ; under parts, gray and yellow. Crown- 

 feathers, erectile. 



Color. — Above, plain olive, the crown usually slightly 

 browner, with feathers darker centrally; middle pair of 

 tail-feathers and outer webs of others, deeper brownish- 

 olive with paler olive edgings, the outer web of lateral 

 tail-feathers sometimes narrowly edged with dull 

 whitish; inner web of tail-feathers (except middle 

 pair) cinnamon-rufous, the outermost two or three 

 usually with a narrow streak of brown next to shaft; 

 wings, dusky grayish-brown, the middle and greater 

 coverts margined terminally with pale huffy olive, the 

 secondaries edged with the same, the edgings broader 

 and more whitish (sometimes yellowish-white) on inner 

 secondaries; basal half of primaries narrowly edged 

 with cinnamon or cinnamon-rufous; sides of head and 

 neck, gray, tinged with olive; chin, throat, and chest. 



This bird is famous for its curious habit of 

 almost always including in the material of which 

 it builds its nest part or all of a cast snake skin. 



t'lain gray; under parts of body, light straw yellozv. the 

 sides of breast and front of sides, pale yellowish-olive; 

 under wing-coverts, pale yellow ; inner webs of wing- 

 feathers, broadly edged with pale cinnamon-rufous; 

 bill, horn-brown ; iris, brown. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest : In tree or stump cavity 

 or Woodpecker liole, from 6 to 50 feet up ; constructed 

 of grass, rootlets, bits of bark, hair, and pine needles ; 

 remarkable for the fact that it is almost always 

 encircled with a cast-ofF snake skin. Et;GS : 4 to 8. 

 creamy to deep buff covered with blotches and length- 

 wise pen lines of brown and purple. 



Distribution. — Eastern United States and southern 

 Canada; north to western New Brunswick, New Hamp- 

 sliire, northern New York, southern Quebec, northern 

 Ontario, and Manitoba; breeding southward to central 

 Florida and westward through Gulf States to Texas; 

 south in winter to Cuba and through eastern Mexico 

 and Central America to Coloinbia ; accidental in 

 Wyoming and Cuba. 



Just why the bird does this, no clear-thinking 

 and candid person will attempt to say. To a 

 certain school of nature-writers the reason is, of 



