164 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
ing inflection — I know that the great-crested fly- 
catcher has arrived. There is always an excite- 
ment about the event that prompts you to seize 
your hat and rush out to find him. And a sight 
of him up in a tree top is worth more than one 
walk ! 
By the side of the other flycatchers in pigeon- 
hole No. 1, he stands at the head of the family. 
What an aristocratic bearing his great crest gives 
him! And look at his olive coat, his ash-gray vest, 
and his bright sulphur - yellow knickerbockers ! 
You almost expect him to produce wig and shoe- 
buckles! Then compare his manners with those 
of his plain gray cousins. Do you suppose he 
could let his wings and his fine rufous tail hang 
down as the least flycatcher, the phcebe, and the 
wood pewee do? And could such a dignified bird 
demean himself with the petty bickerings of the 
kingbird, or the recklessness of the warlike least 
flycatcher ? 
The great-crest flies restlessly among the tree 
tops, uttering his shrill cry, and soliloquizing in a 
low warbling twitter. He also has a loud short 
chatter reserved for occasion, and I have seen him 
on a tree by the house scolding away witha whee 
ree. 
His nest shows all the eccentricity of genius. 
It is usually made in a knot-hole, at varying 
heights from the ground. But the strangest thing 
about it, and that which distinguishes it from the 
