186 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS. 



She builds near man, and spends her time among his groves 

 and orchards. As she is an early coiner, her spring greeting 

 is always welcome ; and as she has no bad habits, she never 

 wears her welcome out. 



These are the commonest small flycatchers of the East, and 

 with the kingbird make up the bulk of those we meet. Some- 

 times a great-crested flycatcher will build her nest, wreathed 

 with snakeskins, in a hole in a tree, or an olive-sided fly- 

 catcher will mount guard over some remote meadow and warn 

 off all intruders with his harsh cries ; but more often the new 

 bird, if we find a new one, will be a small bird, of the size and 

 color of the chebec. He will be a source of perplexity wher- 

 ever he occurs because he will do things that the chebec 

 does not do. I first noticed him because he acted so nmch like 

 a chebec gone crazy. There were half a dozen of them in a 

 fringe of willows between a sloping field and the marsh where 

 the red-winged blackbirds lived. Instead of sitting out in 

 plain view, they kept inside the willows out of sight ; instead 

 of darting out after flies, they flew upward, with a loud, pecul- 

 iar note, turned a somersault above the tree, and dived again 

 into the middle of it. It was quite impossible to believe that 

 they were sedate, inquisitive little chebecs like those that 

 nested in our garden and perched on the bean-poles to inspect 

 the hoeing and to talk to us. As indeed they were not, but 

 the alder flycatcher, the Eastern subspecies, of the Traill's fly- 

 catcher. This bird is fond of the neighborhood of water, and 

 is seldom seen far away from low land ; just as the least fly- 

 catcher, or chebec, is not common away from cultivated 

 grounds, as the Acadian, or green-crested flycatcher is the 

 inhabitant of upland groves of beeches, and as the yellow- 

 bellied flycatcher is a denizen of evergreen growth. 



The nests are almost a sure means of identifying all these 



