£be TOarbler 13 



perpendicular position. What may the object be of this peculiarity? The 

 bird nests in the cypress swamps a few miles distant and appears soon after 

 daybreak and it rarely leaves its place before the evening falls. It has four 

 or five favorite places around the lake, and it is very tame, often permit- 

 ting me to come very close up to it. It is, however, exceedingly suspicious 

 when strangers appear. Then it leaves its position, diving and swimming 

 with extraordinary swiftness and beauty. It is a very beautiful and inter- 

 esting bird and I never tolerate to molest it in anyway. 



The Fish Hawk is a rather common bird in this lake region. I usual- 

 ly see him on bright sunny days darting down to the water's surface and 

 emerging with a large black bass or a catfish in his talons. Apparentlv he 

 begins to taste of his prey while still on the wing, but usually he alights in 

 the top of a tall pine to finish his meal. We sometimes observe the male 

 Bald Eagle sitting quietly in a pine preening his feathers. He scarcely seems 

 to take notice of anything that is going on around him. But all of a sud- 

 den we hear his piercing scream. Like an arrow he darts at the Fish Hawk. 

 The furious attack stupefies the Fish Hawk. Without any attempt of re- 

 sistance he drops the fish and the Eagle catches it before it reaches the 

 ground or the water. With a triumphant cry the latter returns to his mate, 

 which silently watched the combat from the top of a tall pine, and both 

 take part in the meal. 



There are quite a number of birds of pre}' present at this time of the 

 year. Some of them follow the hosts of migrants, others have become more 

 vigilant and impudent since my colony of Cuban Martins left, which took 

 place on the 23d of August this year, after the second brood had become self- 

 supporting. The Gray Kingbird also acted constantly as a sentinel in the 

 tops of pines. No Hawk, and not even an Eagle, dared to come near my 

 garden. They always were furiously attacked and driven away. They 

 never molested the Fish Hawk, however, but they were still more vigilant 

 in their attacks on roving Fish Crows. 



The Kingbirds assemble in small flocks by the end of August. They 

 are very fond of the berries of the poke ( Phytolacca decandra) of which a large 

 specimen stands by my veranda, and sometimes as many as five or six are 

 seen feeding together with Mockingbirds, Thrashers, Red-cockaded Wood- 

 peckers — chickens and common pigeons. In the first days of September 

 they leave us, and the noisy Flycatcher, one of our most common garden 

 birds, follows about two weeks later. The Tyrant family is represented by 

 a few Wood Pewees and the Least Flycatcher during the latter part of Sep- 

 tember, but their stay is of short duration. In some years I have observed 

 the Wood Pewee very late in spring, which seems to indicate that its breed- 

 ing range cannot be very far distant. The Phoebe, familiar to me from my 

 boyhood days and a very conspicuous and welcome winter resident, was first 



