154 PHOEBE. 



rin2;s out above all other birds' notes. What ! he seems 

 to say, and, as though hearmg something wliich not only 

 surprised but amused him, follows this call with a chuck- 

 ling whistle. 



The Greatcrest arrives from the south about May 7, 

 and remains until September. Nesting is begun early in 

 June, a hollow limb being the home usually selected. In 

 collecting its nesting materials, the bird displays a very 

 singular trait, and gives evidence of the stability of habit. 

 With rare exceptions it places a bit of cast snake-skin in 

 its nest. Various reasons have been advanced to account 

 for this singular habit, but none of them is satisfactory. 

 Recently Lieutenant Wirt Robinson has discovered that 

 one of the commonest and uK.ist generally distributed spe- 

 cies of this genus in South America places cast snake-skin 

 in its nest, and it is well known that the Arizona Crested 

 Flycatcher follows the same custom. The habit is there- 

 fore widespread, and is common to birds living under 

 greatly varying conditions. Rather than consider it of 

 especial significance in each species, it seems more reason- 

 able to l)elie\'e that it is an inheritance from a common 

 ancestor, and has no connection with the present sur- 

 roundings of at least those species living so far from the 

 center of distribution of this ti-opical genus as our Myi- 

 ar-chus crinituf:. 



The Phcebe is doniestic ; he prefers the haunts, or, at 



least, handiwork of man, and when not nesting on a beam 



Phcebe ^'^ '^ l)arn, shed, or piazza, selects the 



Sai/ornisp/uehe. shelter of a bridge for a home. Here 



Pi.ite XXXIT. Yie places his nest of moss and mud ; a 

 structui-e of generous proportions, for the Phoabe's family 

 may number five or six. 



Flycatchers, because of the nature of their food, usu- 

 ally make extended migrations. For the same reason 

 they arrive late in the spring and depai-t early in the 



