IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
2oa 
Blue Jay. The blue jay, well known for his brilliant plumage, saucy airs, 
and harsh call notes, is one of the most dreaded foes of the song birds. Through- 
out 'the spring and summer months, these feathered bandits live largely on the 
eggs and young of our most useful song birds. The fear and hatred felt by 
our songbirds toward these daring robbers is well illustrated by the fury with 
which they attack the intruders whenever found near the songbirds’ nest. 
The blue jay is a yearly resident here and builds a bulky nest of sticks, rags, 
paper and leaves, in a crotch from ten to fifty feet from the ground in almost 
any kind of a tree. 
Crow. The crow, another hated robber, not beautiful like his blue coated 
cousin but much more discreet and wary, is in other respects just a blue jay 
“built large,” with a correspondingly larger capacity for the eggs and young 
of our feathered friends. Both of these birds are worthy of destruction, doing 
more harm than good and forwarding the feared extermination of some of our 
rare song-birds. 
The habits of the crow are almost identical with the blue jay and therefore 
do not need a separate description. The nest is about three times as large 
and placed always about^ thirty to sixty feet from the ground, in the deeper 
wooded districts. 
ORDEE PASSEEES: PERCHING BIRDS. 
8ul)-order Clamatores: Songless Perching Birds. 
Kingbird. The kingbird has been well named, as all who are in any degree 
acquainted with this dauntless fighter will heartily agree. He is a born fighter 
and wages unrelenting war upon all crows and hawks that come within his 
range of vision. His food consists of insects which are caught on the wing, 
for the kingbird is a true fiy-catcher. 
From his arrival with us in early May until his departure in October, he is 
living on injurious insects and keeping them in check. 
He is a sociable bird and can be found many times nesting in the residence 
districts of our city, though most commonly seen on the outskirts of our city 
and in the light timberland of the country near open fields and pastures. 
The kingbird’s nest is a rather large, bulky, deeply cupped structure com- 
posed of sticks, bark and grasses, lined with grass and matted fibers. It is 
generally placed in a conspicuous place in a crotch or on a horizontal branch in 
an orchard or thin woods. 
Great Crested Flycatcher. This largest, most magnificent of our fly-catchers, 
the great crested, has several characteristics all its own. Being a bird of the 
deep, quiet woods, it is now becoming much less common in Polk county than 
a few years ago, though still to be found in several localities in some abun- 
dance. 
Its call is a harsh, wild, weird call, suggestive of the bird and its habits. 
Its nest and eggs are also of a peculiar type, for this is the bird that nearly 
always lines his nest hollow with a cast-off snake skin. The nest itself is 
usually placed in a hollow tree or in an abandoned woodpecker’s hole. The 
eggs are striped with longitudinal markings only, of a rich purple, chestnut and 
chocolate brown. No other American bird lays eggs of this peculiar type. 
Their season with us is from May until early October. 
