Mar., 1915 
ADAPTABILITY IN THE CHOICE OF NESTING SITES 
69 
barbed wire fence is spotted ivith pieces of wool torn from passing flocks), 
and lined with hair and feathers. Always loosely built, the nest appeared to 
depend on the rigidity of its support for protection from blowing down, rather 
than on firm attachment to its support. More nests were placed in a three 
or four branched fork against the trunk of the tree than in any other situa- 
tion. Such a location appeared entirely safe against wind. Except in the case 
of the Eastern Kingbird, no attempts at concealing the nest seemed to be 
made. The Arkansas Kingbird, especially, seemed to desire rather than con- 
cealment a nest in an exposed place, where it could alight easily, untroubled 
by foliage. This latter desideratum is probably one of the factors figuring in 
the Kingbirds’ use of electric poles and hay-derricks as nesting sites. 
Fig. 21. An Arkansas Kingbird’s nest on a telephone pole 
The use of a box for a nest, as in figure 19, made me think that perhaps 
Kingbirds could be encouraged to nest near dwellings, and so the following- 
year I nailed an open box on the top of my barn. A pair of Kingbirds hung 
about it one day, but paid no further attention to it. 
To sum up, the Arkansas Kingbird seems to prefer as a nesting site a fork 
near the trunk or a main limb of a large tree, such a site being from fifteen to 
forty feet above the ground, and exposed or easily accessible on the wing. 
Because of the abundance of natural food in the newly irrigated sections, the 
Kingbirds have entered these areas from their previous haunts among the 
cottonwoods of the watercourses and have adapted their method of nesting 
to the treeless conditions. In the very new districts they have nested on hay- 
