January, 1882.] 
AND OOLOGIST 
83 
Fork-tailed Flycatcher. 
A very common bird during five months 
of the year, from April to September, is 
the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, Milvulus Ty- 
rannus {Linn), also called by the natives, 
‘‘Texan Bird of Paradise.” This beauti¬ 
ful member of the family Tyrannidae is 
very abundant during the breeding season 
in all suitable localities, especially in the 
prairies covered with mesquit bushes 
{Algarobia glandulosa.) They are also 
found common in the live oak ‘‘ bosquets" 
and on the edges of w'oods bordering the 
prairies. The nest is usually built in the 
top of a mesquit bush, from six to twelve 
feet from the ground; but I discovered it 
often on the edges of woods in the top ot a 
postoak {Quercus obtusiloba), about thirty 
to forty feet from the ground. All nests I 
found last season were built exteriorly of a 
small creeping downy plant {Gossypianthus 
tonientosus), mixed with cotton and a few 
cow hairs. They were lined very soft and 
smooth with cotton, and some with a few 
fine plant fibres besides cotton. The eggs, 
four to five in number, liave a white cream- 
color ground and covered sparingly with 
thick blotches of dark brown. Some sets, 
however, are more densely spotted and 
blotched with a lighter shade of brown. 
These birds are in this locality very unsus¬ 
picious, breeding sometimes in close prox¬ 
imity to a dwelling and only a few feet 
frbm a very frequented road. In such in¬ 
stances the nest is built almost always in a 
mulberry tree. In the eastern part of Te.x- 
as, in the coast region near Houston, it 
was very difficult to discover a nest of this 
magnificent bird. There they breed al¬ 
ways in trees densely covered with the 
long gray Spanish moss {Tillandsia unieoi- 
des), where it is aknost impossible to find 
a nest. They arrive from their winter 
quarters late in March or in the first days 
of April. In the early part of September, 
these birds gather sometimes in large flocks, 
and by the last of that month all have de¬ 
parted for the south.— H. Nehrling. 
Fork-taileu Flycai'cuer. 
