BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
59 
Order PASSERES. 
Family TYRANNID.E. 
Tyrannus tyrannus. Kingbird. 444- 
Kingbirds are very generally distributed over all sorts of country 
that is not wooded. They usually come north in pairs, and go south 
in small flocks of one or two families. My records of their arrival for 
the past three years are: May 13, .Alay 6, and May 9, respectively. 
In 1898 and 1900 I saw the last one on the same date —September 11. 
They depend almost wholly on flying insects for their food. The only 
stomach I have examined was from a bird taken in August. It was 
filled with large winged ants. The audacious courage of the King- 
bird is well known. It fearlessly attacks anything in feathers, and on 
one occasion I even saw a mother bird pounce down upon the back of 
a cat that was running ofl" with one of her young. The value of this 
bird as a protector against the depredations of hawks and crows in 
orchard and farmyard is generally acknowledged. They invariably 
detect such intruders at a distance, and sally out to meet them with an 
attack so vigorous and persistent that the enemy is glad to retreat. 
The nervous irritability, characteristic of all our flycatchers, is most 
highly developed in this species. At times it is so pent up that the 
bird becomes a veritable fury, and dashes upward toward the clouds, 
crying fiercely, and ever and anon reaching a frenzied climax, when 
its cry is prolonged into a kind of shriek, and its flight a zigzag of 
blind rage. These exhibitions are frequently given in the teeth of 
the premonitory gust before a thunder storm, as if in defiance of the 
very elements. Like other birds .which are usually unmolested by 
man, the Kingbird takes no pains to conceal its nest, wdiich is very 
often placed in an apple tree in a field or pasture, or in an alder or 
other small tree near water. 
Tyrannus verticalis. Arkansas Kingbird. 447. 
In New England Bird Life, Stearns, p. 13, we are told that Mr. 
George E. Brown took a specimen of this kingbird at Eliot, Me. It 
is an accidental wanderer from beyond the Mississippi. 
Myiarchus crinitus. Crested Flycatcher. 452. 
This large, handsome flycatcher is rather uncommon, but yet a regu- 
lar spring and fall visitor. I have not found it here in Durham after the 
first of June, though undoubtedly it breeds not far away, as it is com- 
mon, locally, elsewhere in the state. Like the Kingbird they are 
