86 TWENTIETH CENTURY CLASSICS 



arriving silently at. eve, and stealing away at early dawn. 

 Their flights are direct and well sustained. 



Their nests are placed in the forks of trees, in groves 

 and on the timbered bottom lands, thirty to seventy feet 

 from the ground. They are composed of sticks and lined 

 with grasses, fibrous stripping^ from plants, and hairs. 

 Eggs four or five, 1.65x1.20; light to dark green, and 

 irregularly spotted, splashed or blotched with various 

 shades of pale to dark brown and purple, usually the 

 thickest around the larger end; in form, oval to ovate. 



XXII. KINGBIRD. 



Tyrannus tyrannus (LiNN.). 



Summer resident ; abundant. Arrive the last of April ; 

 begin laying about the middle of May; return in Sep- 

 tember. 



HABITAT. Temperate North America, chiefly east of the 

 Rocky Mountains; very rare on the Pacific coast; south 

 in winter into northern South America. 



Iris dark brown; bill and claws black; legs and feet 

 grayish to brownish black. 



This common and well known species are rightly en- 

 titled to the name they bear, on account of their brave, 

 audacious attacks upon th.e birds of prey and others in- 

 truding upon their breeding grounds. This combative 

 spirit, however, closes, with the season, and their shrill, 

 twittering notes are seldom heard after the young are capa- 

 ble of providing for themselves. The males arrive about 

 a week in advance, and on the arrival of the females, many 

 a hard battle is fought for the choice. Their courtships 

 are short, and, when once mated, they are. true and devoted, 



