FLYCATCHERS 255 



phcebe, but the names ' house ' and ' barn ' pewee apply better to it, 

 and more popular affection attaches to this confiding bird than to its 

 handsome western relative. It builds under bridges and culverts 

 most frequently, but barns and sheds, piazza crotches, and window 

 sills all offer it congenial homes. 



Its nest, found year after year in the same place or only a rafter 

 away, though big and loosely put together, seems a marvel of 

 beauty with its touches of green moss. The bird herself with her 

 plain voice, jerky motions, and abrupt manners but homely virtues 

 comes to hold a place in our affections that no bickering, domineer- 

 ing wciferam could ever hope to win. 



457. Sayornis say a (Bonap.). SAY PHCEBE. 



Adults. Anterior lower parts grayish, posterior tawny brownish ; upper 

 parts dark gray, wing quills and tail black. Young : like adults, but wing 

 coverts tipped with brown. Length : 7.50-8.05, wing 3.90-4.25, tail 3.35- 

 3.75. 



Distribution. Breeds from the Arctic Circle in Alaska south to Lower 

 California, and from western Nebraska and Kansas west to the Pacific ; 

 migrates to Oaxaca, Mexico. 



Nest. Under bridges, about barns and houses, in caves, or wells, and 

 under shelves of cliffs ; made of materials such as weed stems, grasses, 

 moss, wool, hair, cocoons, and feathers. Eggs : 3 to 6, white, sometimes 

 finely dotted with reddish brown about the larger end. 



Food. Grasshoppers, crickets, weevils, beetles, flies, moths, butterflies, 

 and other insects. 



The Say flycatcher of the brown belly and black tail is the com- 

 monest of the western flycatchers, nesting not only about every cattle 

 ranch, stage station, and mining camp, but at the Arctic Circle and 

 on the deserts of the southwestern United States, where it builds in 

 caves with wood rats and on cliffs with the prairie falcon. 



In rocky canyons it may be seen perched on boulders darting out 

 after passing insects. On the Plains, where it flits silently from bush 

 to bush, at a distance its black tail and dull colors would often lead 

 you to mistake it for the omnipresent AmpMspiza but for its plain- 

 tive phee-eur. Besides this note, during the nesting season it is said 

 to have a plaintive twittering warble. 



Say a is a true flycatcher, and Major Bendire has seen it catch good- 

 sized grasshoppers on the wing. He calls attention to its power, 

 which many of the flycatchers share with the hawks and owls, of 

 ejecting indigestible parts of its food in the form of pellets. 



458. Sayornis nigricans (Swains.). BLACK PHCEBE. 



Adults. Black, except for white belly, outer web of outer tail feathers, 

 edges of inner secondaries, and under tail coverts which are white striped 

 with dusky. Young :. head and neck sooty black ; wing bands and bend of 

 wing rusty ; back, rump, and edges of black on breast washed with brown- 

 ish. Length : 6.25-7.00, wing 3.55-3.80, tail 3.45-3.75. 



