Flycatchers SONGLESS BIRDS. 



while the other, an equally successful apiarist, says that 

 he has never suffered any appreciable loss from this bird. 

 They are said to take only drones. 



Crested Flycatcher: Myiarchus crinitus. 



Length : 8-9 inches. 



Male and Female: Head feathers forming a pointed crest. Above 

 grayish olive, browner on wings and tail, feathers of former 

 with light edges. Throat gray, below sulphur-yellow, which 

 extends beneath wings. Bill dark, thick, and rather short. 



Note : Harsh call, somewhat like the Kingbird's. 



Season: Summer resident ; May to September. 



Breeds : Through its United States range. 



Nest: In hollow trees and posts, sometimes in abandoned Wood- 

 peckers' holes ; made of varied materials, in which snake skins 

 are often found. 



Eggs: Uniquely marked, ground buff or clay-coloured, marked in 

 various ways with purple, chestnut, and chocolate brown. 



Range: Eastern United States and southern Canada, west to the 

 Plains, south, in winter, through eastern Mexico to Costa Rica. 



This is the great sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, who lines his 

 nest hollow with cast away snake skins. How many little 

 boys, as well as people of larger growth, have worked their 

 hands into the hole of a supposed Woodpecker, only to feel 

 the drying skin of a snake twisted up inside, and have fairly 

 tumbled to the ground, lest the former inhabitant of the 

 skin should be in the vicinity. These birds do not nest as 

 freely in the neighbourhood as the Kingbird, and, though 

 sufficiently pugnacious with their bird kin, keep rather 

 aloof from human society, so that their habits are less 

 familiar. In early May when they arrive, they feed upon 

 ground-beetles, etc., but later in the season frequent the 

 wooded edges of lanes and old pastures, and very little 

 insect life that passes by escapes their snapping gape. 



Burroughs, in speaking of the Flycatchers in general, 

 says that "The wild Irishman of them all is the Great- 

 crested Flycatcher, a large leather-coloured or sandy com- 

 plexioned bird, that prowls through the woods, uttering 

 its harsh, uncanny note, and waging fierce warfare upon 

 its fellows." 



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