ZOOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 81 



ORDER PASSERES. PERCHING BIRDS. 



Birds with weak feet, usually slight bills, mostly singers. 



SUBORDER CLAMATORES. SONGLESS PERCHING BIRDS. 



FAMILY TYRANNID^E. FLYCATCHERS. 

 Pre-eminent insect feeders; excellent friends. 



GENUS TYRANXUS Cuv. 



Kingbird, reduced. 



1 89-444- (368). Tyraimus tyrannns (Linn.}. *KINGBIRD; BEE MARTIN; TYRANT 

 FLYCATCHER. 



Common; throughout the state; May till Sept.; I have reports of this species from 

 Benzie County, Presque Isle, Thunder Bay and Escanaba; " Mackinac Island v (S. E. 

 White); "common at Iron Mountain" (E. E. Brewster); "Keweenaw Point" (Knee- 

 land); breeds; nests in June in orchard trees, etc.; eggs three to five, cream colored, 

 irregularly spotted with brown; kills bees, both workers and drones; does more good 

 than harm as it kills myriads of noxious insects and usually few bees; Mr. L. W. Wat- 

 kins tells me that this bird breeds at Traverse City. Prof. S. A. Forbes found (report 

 of Mich. Hort. Soc., 1881, p. 204) that forty-two per cent of the food of several examined 

 consisted of insects. 

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