A FEATHERED MIDGET AND ITS NEST. 



Next to the humming-bird, the blue-gray gnat- 

 catcher, Polioptila ccerulea (L.), is the smallest bird nest- 

 ing in Indiana. It is a summer resident, arriving 

 from the south about the tenth of April ; the date of 

 its arrival in Yigo County for five successive years 

 having been April 10th, llth, llth, 10th and 10th, 

 respectively, showing that it can judge the day of the 

 year almost as well as some beings higher in the scale 

 of animal life. 



The total length of the bird is but 4J inches, and of 

 this, 2J inches is tail. The color is an ashy blue, 

 brightest on the head; the male with the forehead 

 and a line over the eye, black. 



By the time the gnat-catcher arrives, insects of vari- 

 ous kinds are plentiful and its season's work of lessen- 

 ing their ranks at once begins. On April 18, 1897, I 

 watched for an hour four of these birds in their cease- 

 less insect-seeking movements. They were'in a thorn 

 tree and I in the angle of an old rail fence, less than 

 a dozen feet away. Flitting from twig to twig ; turn- 

 ing their heads now this way, now that ; peering first 

 on one side of a branch and then on the other, they 

 kept up their eager quest. Every few moments one 

 would dart out to one side of the tree and catch an 

 insect on the wing. Once, while endeavoring to catch 

 a rapidly flying beetle, one of the feathered sprites 



(75) 



