256 FLYCATCHERS 



Distribution. Breeds in Lower Sonoran zone from Texas to eastern 

 Arizona and south through Mexico, except Yucatan and the Pacific coast 

 north of Coliraa. 



Nest. A wall pocket made of small pellets of mud mixed with dried 

 grass, weed fibers, and hair, placed in wells and on sides of buildings and 

 cliffs. Eggs : 3 to 6, white, or finely dotted with reddish brown around 

 the larger end. 



Food. Insects and wild berries. 



The sharply contrasted black and white plumage of the black 

 phcebe of whichever form make him the handsomest of the common 

 flycatchers. He is not averse to civilization and may be met com- 

 monly just off the highways usually near water. I have found him 

 in a San Francisco cemetery, in Sutro Heights Park, in Pasadena, 

 bathing in a reservoir beside the street, and in Santa Cruz perched 

 on the tip of a century plant leaf in front of a hotel. He has all the 

 flycatcher mannerisms, and as he sits watching for insects jets his 

 tail and quivers his wings at his sides, darts out with a liquid hip', a 

 rising kee-ree', and falling kee-wray', snaps up an insect, and settles 

 back again on his perch. 



At Twin Oaks, California, I found the phoebes nesting in a deserted 

 well and also inside a whitewashed chicken house, and was told of 

 their having built under the eaves of a kitchen, the pair getting 

 their meals about the fly screens before the window. Such centers of 

 civilization are not always chosen by them, however, and I have 

 found them in the foothills of the Sierra and in a narrow lonely 

 canyon of the mountains of southern California, where their wall- 

 pocket nest was fastened against a cliff behind a hanging vine. 



45 8a. S. n. semiatra (Vigors). WESTERN BLACK 



PHOSBE. 



Similar to S. nigricans but under tail coverts pure 

 white. 



Distribution. Mainly in Lower Sonoran zone on the 

 Pacific coast, from Oregon to Colima, Mexico ; also most 

 of Arizona. 



Food. Largely winged insects. 



Fig ' m GENUS CONTOPUS. 



General Characters. Feet extremely small ; wing at least six times as 

 long as tarsus ; tarsus not longer than bill, but longer than 

 middle toe with claw, or with a conspicuous white cottony 

 patch on each side of rump. 



Fig. 331. 



KEY TO SPECIES. 



1. Length 7.10-8.00. 



2. With conspicuous white cottony tufts on sides of rump ; under parts 



without yellow borealis, p. 257. 



2'. Without cottony rump tufts ; belly yellowish. Arizona. 



pallidiventris, p. >5* 



