PERCHING BIRDS 
443. Scissor-t ailed Flycatcher. Muscivora forficata. 
Range. — Mexico, north through Texas to 
southern Kansas; accidental in other parts of 
the country. 
The Scissor-tail or “Texan Bird of Paradise’’ 
is the most beautiful member of this interest- 
ing family. Including its long tail, often 10 
inches in length and forked for about 6 inches, 
this Flycatcher reaches a 
length of about 15 inches. 
It is pale grayish above, 
fading into whitish below, 
and has scarlet linings to 
the wings, and a scarlet 
crown patch. They are 
one of the most abundant 
Creamy white of the breeding birds in 
Texas, placing their large 
roughly built nests in all kinds of trees and at 
any elevation, but averaging between ten and 
fifteen feet above ground. The nests are built 
of rootlets, grasses, weeds and trash of all 
kinds, such as paper, rags, string, etc. The 
interior is generally lined with plant fibres, 
hair or wool. They lay from three to five, and rarely six eggs with a creamy 
white ground color, more or less spotted and blotched with reddish brown, lilac 
and gray, the markings generally being most numerous about the larger end. 
They average in size about .90 x .67. Data. — Corpus Christi, Texas, May 18, 
1899. 6 eggs. Nest of moss, vines, etc., on small trees in open woods near town. 
Collector, Frank B. Armstrong. 
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 
444. Kingbird. Tyrannus tyrannus. 
Kingbird 
Range. — Temperate North America, breeding 
from the Gulf of Mexico north to New Bruns- 
wick, Manitoba and British Columbia; rare off 
the Pacific coast. 
This common Tyrant Flycatcher is very 
abundant in the eastern parts of its range. 
They are one of the most pugnacious and cour- 
ageous of birds attacking and driving away any 
feathered creature to which they take a dis- 
like, regardless of size. 
Before and during the 
nesting season, their 
sharp, nerve-racking clat- 
ter is kept up all day long, 
and with redoubled vigor 
when anyone approaches 
their nesting site. They 
nest in any kind of a tree, 
in fields or open woods, and at any height 
from the ground, being found on fence rails 
within two feet of the ground or in the tops of 
pines 70 or 80 feet above the earth. Nearly 
every orchard will be found to contain one or 
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