THE FLYCATCHERS 



WHEN you see a dusky bird, smaller than 

 a robin, lighter gray underneath than 

 on its sooty-brown back, with a well-rounded, 

 erect head, set on a short, thick neck, you may 

 safely guess it is one of the flycatchers — an- 

 other strictly American family. If the bird 

 has a white band across the end of its tail it is 

 probably the fearless kingbird. If the feathers 

 on top of its head look as if they had been 

 brushed the wrong way into a pointed crest; 

 moreover, if some chestnut colour shows in its 

 tail when spread, and its pearly gray breast 

 shades into yellow underneath, you are looking 

 at the noisy "wild Irishman" of birddom, the 

 crested flycatcher. Confiding Phoebe wears 

 the plainest of dull clothes with a still darker, 

 dusky crown cap, and a line of white on her 

 outer tail feathers. She and the plaintive 

 wood pewee, who has two indistinct whitish 

 bars across her extra-long wings, are scarcely 

 larger than an English sparrow ; while the least 

 flycatcher, who calls himself Chebec, is, as you 

 may suppose, the smallest member of the 

 tribe to leave the tropics and spend the summer 

 with us. Male and female members of this 



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