The Western Kingbird 
Taken in Washington Photo by the Author 
WESTERN KINGBIRD AT NEST 
string,—string in strands, string in coils, string in bunches, hanks, and 
tangles, drug store string of a dissipated crimson hue, white string that 
came around the sugar, greasy string that you had tied around your 
finger to remind you to feed the chickens, string of every length and size 
and use and hue. 
Those Western Kingbirds which have not yet adopted men manage 
to subsist somewhat after the fashion of their eastern cousins, and build 
a nest of twigs, grass, weed-stalks, bark strips, and cottonwood down, 
placing it against the trunk, or saddling it upon a horizontal fork of willow, 
poplar, cottonwood, or oak, usually near water. Even that most inhos¬ 
pitable of trees, the eucalyptus, is made to do service sometimes; and 
if the birds only knew it, they are safest there. 
But, more commonly, nests are placed about crannies and projec¬ 
tions of farm buildings, fences, unused hayricks, windmills, or even 
upon the house itself. The crossbars of telegraph and telephone poles 
and power-line trestles are favorite places, because of the command 
they give of the insect world. In the Fresno region Mr. Tyler has told 
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