51

1916

79. Blue Jay. Noted only five times in all during April - on the
10th [April 10, 1916], 12th [April 12, 1916], 13th [April 13, 1916], 14th [April 14, 1916] & 29 [April 29, 1916]. Nor were they more numerously represented
before the middle of May. After that I saw them almost daily, often
as many as 5 or 6 together, ranging through our orchard or bordering
woodland in obvious quest of birds' eggs, sometimes maintaining a
discreet silence when thus engaged, at others screaming incessantly.
They also paid frequent visit [visits] in May to a field where cow peas
had been sown picking up and devouring all that had been left
uncovered by the harrow. In June they fed mostly in the tops of 
tall oaks & other forest trees, presumably on larvae of the Gypsy
& Forest Tent moths, seeking these sometimes in elms close about the
house. To what extent, if any, they preyed on the eggs or young of
our orchard-nesting birds I failed to ascertain but certain it is
that few such birds succeeded in rearing broods this year. No nests
of the blue Jay happened to come under my observation during
the entire season.

80. King bird. Arrived May 6 [May 6, 1916]. Afterwards present in rather more
than the usual numbers in the neighborhood of the Farm. Nesting
pairs settled in Lawrence's orchard, Howe's pastures & elsewhere
but none within our boundaries although they paid not 
infrequent visits to orchard & sheds then close about our house.

81. Crested Flycatcher. As usual this species was represented in our
neighborhood by only a single pair of which one bird arrived on May 6 [May 6, 1916]
and after that proclaimed his daily presence in the orchard by incessant
loud-voiced calling, whereas the other was not certainly noted until
June 5 [June 5, 1916] when the two were seen together flying into and from the hollow
section of an apple tree, suspended in the orchard near the back shed,
wherein they have nested regularly for ten or a dozen years, I saw