NATURE'S CALENDAR 125 



This diversity is especially striking in the June r 



case of the small " tyrant " group. Thus 

 the phoebe-bird erects a home of mud and 

 living moss, almost as big and heavy as a 

 robin's nest, and glues it against a wall, 

 or sets it on a rock-shelf, or on some stone 

 or timber about a bridge or house. The 

 chebec weaves a little cup of hempen 

 shreds and other soft materials, hardly 

 distinguishable from that of the summer 

 yellow-bird, and, like that garden warbler, 

 sets it snugly in the upright fork of some 

 garden bush or shade-tree by the road- 

 side. For the home of its cousin, the lit- 

 tle green, or Acadian, flycatcher, however, 

 you must go to the woods and search the 

 ends of the boughs of low trees, where it 

 will be found suspended, like a slightly 

 woven hammock, across some horizontal 

 fork. Wholly different from any of these 

 methods is that of the wood pewee; its 

 nest is an exquisitely soft cup set upon 

 the top of some stout limb. Usually an 

 old, half-dead branch is chosen, more or 

 less overgrown with lichens, and these 

 very lichens are plucked here and there 

 by the careful bird and glued to its nest, 

 so that the little cup is made to look like 

 a natural excrescence. 



Our two kingbirds, the common "bee- 

 martin " and the great -crested flycatch- 

 er, make bulky nests of coarse materials. 

 The kingbird puts his usually in an or- 

 chard tree, but the great- crested fly- 

 catcher chooses some cavity in a tall 



