FLYCATCHERS: ARIZONA CRESTED FLYCATCHER 423 
alone is sufficient to entitle it to protection, its destruction of insects especially 
injurious to vegetables, and in addition its habit of driving off hawks make it 
peculiarly valuable about houses (Beal). 
General Habits. —That the Scissor-tail, an astonishing creation 
with glistening black, white, and salmon plumage and white forked tail 
twice its length, has not only crossed from Texas—where it is known as 
the Texas Bird of Paradise—but is slowly spreading, mile by mile, into 
New Mexico is matter for special gratulation. Every one whose ranch or 
village is reached in this extension should constitute himself an especial 
guardian of this remarkable visitor, not only on the utilitarian ground 
that it eats the insects which threaten his vegetables and drives off the 
hawks which harry his chickens, but on the higher ground that it is the 
most spectacular, the drollest and most entertaining bird of the air whose 
good fortune it was ever man’s to have in his neighborhood. 
In effervescent spirit and original, fantastic, aerial evolution, it 
outdoes all its kin—this kingbird raised to the Nth degree. One of its 
favorite performances is to fly up and, with rattling wings and penetrat¬ 
ing bee-bird screams— ka-qiiee-ka-que&ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee —execute 
an aerial seesaw, a line of sharp-angled AAAAAAs, at the angles rapidly 
opening and shutting its long white scissor-blades. Regarding the other 
fowls of the air, the male shows such arrogant assurance that he has 
actually been seen giving chase to the Mexican national emblem, the 
Caracara, pouncing upon the innocent passerby and literally riding him 
out of the neighborhood. 
A more praiseworthy assertion of his rights was witnessed when the 
head of a family was guarding his mate on the nest and another Scissor- 
tail flew in as if to question those rights. “The angry guardian flew at 
him in fury, chasing him from the field with a loud noise of wings. At the 
first sound of combat the brooding bird’s head appeared above the nest 
and hopping up on the rim she watched the chase with craned neck till 
the intruder, with her lord and master close at his heels, faded into white 
specks in the blue” (Bailey, 1902b, p. 30). Why such eager interest on 
the part of the onlooker? Was the well punished intruder perchance an 
old discarded lover? 
Usually social in habit, a band of Scissor-tails may be seen at their 
evening ablutions, darting down to a pool for a dip, then flying up into 
the air, their beautiful pink, salmon, and ruby patches shining in the late 
afternoon light (Nice, 1924, p. 56). 
ARIZONA CRESTED FLYCATCHER: MyiSrchus magister magister Ridgway 
Description. — Length: About 9.4-10 inches, wing 4-4.6, tail 4.1-4.6, hill from 
nostril .7 -.8, tarsus .9-1. Adults: Upperparts grayish olive , browner on head, upper 
tail coverts, tail, and wings; tail with middle feathers dusky brown, others partly 
rufous; outer tail feathers with uniform, dusky streak on inner weh; wings brownish, 
middle and greater coverts edged with lighter, primaries edged with cinnamon- 
