424 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 93 



broken and worn and had many of the barbs missing alto- 

 gether. We supposed this to be due to the rubbing against 

 the nest walls during incubation. The condition of the two 

 tails is well shown in the photographs, Fig. 2 being of the 

 male and Fig 3 of the female. 



Methods of Hunting. 



Recalling their usual noisy manners, I rather expected 

 them to make more noise about the nest than some of the 

 other birds studied. On the contrary, they proved to be the 

 least noisy of any of the passerine birds yet studied. 



In hunting they spent a large percent of their time on cer- 

 tain low hanging branches in the neighboring trees. The 

 male preferred one in a large honey locust, where he sat well 

 in toward the trunk. The female chose similar branches in 

 an ash and two box elders. One of the parents was invar- 

 iably on one of these perches, from which he or she could 

 watch the nest. Only occasionally did one of them select a 

 conspicuous perch. When they did so it was either in the 

 top of the nest tree or the topmost branches of a prostrate 

 trunk near by. 



The dififerent methods of securing food were interesting 

 and a short account of them follows. The data were ob- 

 tained by watching from the blind and also from the sur- 

 rounding timber with the aid of a pair of field glasses. 



The greatest variety of food was secured in true flycatcher 

 fashion, i.e., by watching for passing insects and darting after 

 them from the chosen perch. /Vfter deducting the 109 un- 

 known morsels of food, we have 30? fed which were iden- 

 tified. Thirty-one per cent ^ of these 307 morsels were taken 

 on the wing and included flies, moths, mayflies, lady beetles, 

 butterflies, wasps, dragonflies, and bees. We actually saw 



^ This figure and following per cent are based on the supposition 

 that all of the individuals of the forms included as captured by 

 these methods were taken only in the one way. Thus there may 

 be some error, for the reason that we did not see all of the food 

 secured. 



