Cassin’s Kingbird 263 
of insects caught on the wing, and while they have been 
accused of destroying honey-bees, it appears that only 
the drones attract them, and that they are in every way 
most useful and desirable birds and deserve rigid 
protection. 
The nest, which is completed about the first week in 
June, is generally placed in a fork or on a horizontal 
bough of a cotton-wood tree, and is often a bulky structure. 
The eggs, three or four in number, closely resemble those 
of the Kingbird and measure about °93 x °69 inch. 
Cassin’s Kingbird. Tyrannus vociferans. 
A.0.U. Checklist no 448—Colorado Records—Aiken 872, p. 205; 
Henshaw 74, p. 343; Allen & Brewster 83, p. 195; Drew 85, p. 17; 
Beckham 87, p. 122; Morrison 89, p. 146; Kellogg 90, p. 88; Lowe 
92, p. 101; Cooke 97. pp. 87, 209; Dille 03, p. 74; Gilman 07, p. 155; 
Rockwell 08, p. 166; Warren 09, p. 15; Henderson 09, p. 232. 
Description.—Closely resembling T. verticalis in size and colour, 
but the breast w much darker ashy, and contrasting more strongly 
with the whiter chin; the outer web of the outer tail-feather below 
paler than the inner one, but never pure white ; four outer primaries 
abruptly attenuated, the outermost (tenth) shorter than the fifth; 
middle toe shorter than the tarsus. Length about 7:9; wing 5-30; 
tail 3-70; tarsus -82; culmen -70. 
The female resembles the male in colour, but the tips of the primaries 
are hardly attenuated, and the orange-red crown spot is somewhat 
restricted ; the young birds have no crown-patch. 
Distribution.—Breeding throughout the south-western portion of the 
United States, from Wyoming southwards to western Texas and 
through New Mexico and Arizona to southern California (but not, 
apparently, in Utah or Nevada) ; also in northern and middle Mexico, 
wintering in southern Mexico and Guatemala, and also, it is said, in 
southern California. 
In Colorado Cassin’s Kingbird is a common summer resident along 
the eastern foothills and the adjacent plains, arriving in El] Paso co. 
about the second week in May, a little later than the Arkansas 
Kingbird. It ranges up into the mountain parks to 9,000 feet, 
having been observed breeding at that elevation near Breckenridge 
by Carter, and by Kellogg in Estes Park at 8,000 feet. North 
of the Arkansas-Platte divide this species does not appear to be 
nearly so abundant, as it has only once been met with by Henderson 
