a . m = oe a oe en 9 a = i ha « i ee el 1 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM ButietTin 179 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN FLYCATCHERS LARKS, SWALLOWS, AND THEIR ALLIES ORDER PASSERIFORMES BY ARTHUR CLEVELAND BENT Taunton, Massachusetts ot e: INcCE= EVIE EAs, KeOreD 9 Tes a 0. ¢ CL \ ae i 42 a UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1942 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D.C. - - - - - - - = = Price $1.00 (paper) ADVERTISEMENT The scientific publications of the National Museum include two series, known, respectively, as Proceedings and Bulletin. The Proceedings series, begun in 1878, is intended primarily as a medium for the publication of original papers, based on the collec- tions of the National Museum, that set forth newly acquired facts in biology, anthropology, and geology, with descriptions of new forms and revisions of limited groups. Copies of each paper, in pamphlet form, are distributed as published to libraries and scien- tific organizations and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. The dates at which these separate papers are published are recorded in the table of contents of each of the volumes. The series of Bulletins, the first of which was issued in 1875, con- tains separate publications comprising monographs of large zoologi- cal groups and other general systematic treatises (occasionally in several volumes), faunal works, reports of expeditions, catalogs of type specimens, special collections, and other material of similar nature. The majority of the volumes are octavo in size, but a quarto size has been adopted in a few instances in which large plates were regarded as indispensable. In the Bulletin series appear volumes under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, in octavo form, published by the National Museum since 1902, which contain papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum. The present work forms No. 179 of the Bulletin series. ALEXANDER WETMORE, Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. WasuinoTon, D. C., January 20, 1942. II CONTENTS Hamily Tyrannidae: Tyrant: flycatchers. .. 2. -. 9 ete. Tyrannus tyrannus: Eastern kingbird__.__.._.___._-_____-_-- Habits! Got ee Le Ure thinten Acedia ete 2 Tyrannus vociferans: 'Cassin’svkingbird? stdescee) sowed 4 EEN Sa pe ce ee cm Sere) 2S Sau AE A os DisinbuUtion: 557552 aya Sees Ss > = Se awe 22s Muscivora tyrannus: Fork-tailed flycatcher_________________- PADIS 223 2 oe ee ee ae ee eh > Distribution: - 2 Cee Week! runic weveebeees sy Myiodynastes luteiventris swarthi: Arizona sulphur-bellied fly- EDC LT a I a re EN EE en pe Distribution Se. Se corte es een oe So Myiarchus crinitus boreus: Northern crested flycatcher-- - ~~ --- Babitses <2. oe SOO, LT La - Slee pemollan To Page 98 98 105 106 106 120 122 122 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Order PassERIFORMES—Continued. Family Tyrannidae—Continued. Page Myiarchus tyrannulus magister: Arizona crested flycatcher____- 123 iabitse fk = ate le eee ee re eg ey ae So 123 Distribution) 2 Seo Saree ee nt Se eee s einer See sak 126 Myiarchus tyrannulus nelsoni: Mexican crested flycatcher__-_-__ 127 Habits’: 3 ats Ooo ye eae een ae ated. One LEAN eee 127 Myiarchus cinerascens cinerascens: Ash-throated flycatcher_-____ 128 Habits PS ae te a ee ey) mee ea en ae 128 Distributions 6. oe ae ee Lagi a os ae ge 135 Myiarchus cinerascens pertinax: Lower California flycatcher.____ 1386 El abite ae 28) eye eh Bake as ae et en 136 Myiarchus tuberculifer olivascens: Olivaceous flycatcher_ ____- 137 Habits 23s 2 ee ea A ETN ERAS eet ap 137 Distribution 2232. CPA Sus ee eae es ea tas 139 Sayornis pheebe> Eastern phoebese = = =8 5-5 2ss kee ec 140 Habite.s) 3b 8S Oe el are peta ae eT 140 Distribution a. 262 2 +6 Seawater ae Nk 153 Sayornis nigricans nigricans: Black phoebe___________________ 154 Habits. 2.) 200. ie ele NOt aR OO aaent manent Wieeed 0 20r 4 |8 154 Distribution tn! ox! dis Ql 5 plays See ee Ne! Blab 164 Sayornis nigricans salictaria: San Quintin phoebe_____________ 165 Habits 20sec e Fog hae ee SRN ee ae By a papa lie i a PN 165 Sayornis nigricans brunnescens: San Lucas phoebe____-________ 165 EL aD iGa 2 eS eR ey ey ee cil eR ea) 2 165 Sayornis saya saya: Say siphoebels 22 owen ee 166 Peat ag 2 Rr Ee carey ee aM LP 166 Distribution . — = _ beet ee a ito ik perchyer ee 172 Sayornis saya quiescens: San Jose phoebe___________________- 173 Habit 2 yoke 0 Ae Pe OS gn Re I DS Sa 173 Empidonax flaviventris: Yellow-bellied flycatcher_____________ 174 Habitse 60 2 Ue 2 had) ee rene eee eee 1s 174 Distribution: 228205 ee A ees tay geen eee yee a 2 ie 182 Empidonax virescens: Acadian flycatcher_________---_-------- 183 habits s os ht NS Sy I A ea ett 183 Distributions e422 oe od eos eR ei a DEB ned 196 Empidonax trailli brewsteri: Little flyeatcher________________- 197 Habits sc 2 SS Sh he ee me 2s” 197 Empidonax trailli trailli: Alder flyeatcher_____-.------_-_-_-- 204 Habits shi see tt see eee aa eee a 8 204 Distribution 2 22-23 eee ie ae ea, Re? 211 Empidonax minimus: Least flycatcher__._.___.-.------------ 213 Habitsca)ize sutcoth Yoh rhb ani ie ee eal aye i ae) 213 Distrmovition 2 2 fab see) 0 er ee eee ee 223 Empidonax hammondi: Hammond’s flyeatcher______-_-_----_- 225 Habitee2 322250 2 oe en ae ee ee 225 Distribution tae! 10k to) 22 ct sep a ene aie oR: 232 Empidonax wrighti: Wright’s flycatecher________.___._-_.--_-_- 233 DR ea digi ik Bek I eI dee RR 233 Distribution a. tyu22 up Gp i™ shite ee eee) eee eR 240 Empidonax griseus: Gray flyeateher__ |... -._.-_- ee 4222_-_..- 241 EV AEG shes iar cnn 0) ls TR ee a 241 CONTENTS Vf Order PASSERIFORMES—Continued. Family Tyrannidae—Continued. Page Empidonax difficilis difficilis: Western flycatcher--~-~--------- 246 FEET Sas Sane eae ge ee ee cia 246 Distribution ee al ee le Tee ee spe eee See 252 Empidonax difficilis cineritius: San Lucas flyeatcher-~--------- 253 Pe bitees see) Se ies eee AERA SEITE 253 Empidonax fulvifrons pygmaeus: Buff-breasted flycatcher__----- 254 Habits bastitol 2) eleiany 1s Beem tees o. 254 DistribUtioneets tee ee ee eee eee 259 Myiochanes pertinax pallidiventris: Coues’s flycatcher- -_------ 260 TFET SR Re eh pa gated Hip el ree se eg eS a 260 Distributions eee yeh SUE ae Sea eae eee 266 Myiochanes virens: Eastern wood pewee--------------------- 266 Habitsaee ented Nae ee eee Re) See a eee 266 BUD TS GE UHL Ug pe a ye ws ee Eee 277 Myiochanes richardsoni richardsoni: Western wood pewee------ 279 ERA itso a ts ph LEER oe Lee = 279 AMBRE cs Geb Ul tL We ct tes RS ee ee ree 286 Myiochanes richardsoni peninsulae: Large-billed wood pewee- - - 287 Habitgiaiams, esd eo veiosy. coins) Dal ed tee ee ies S 287 Nuttallornis mesoleucus: Olive-sided flycatcher__-------------- 288 ag ita n ok 5 ea be ne = tn Sey Seals eR = oy 288 Distribution so... LAs ORE eee eee tesa Se = 300 Pyrocephalus rubinus mexicanus: Vermilion flycatcher -------~- 302 Has bits. os oe Se ee EE Ses a 302 Distributions 252246 92st a a he ee ee 307 Camptostoma imberbe: Beardless flyeatcher- ----------------- 308 Habits 2.22 =42 = Re ee EE Ee 308 AD) rested UG YN ees = os a et a ee ry ee OS ee SE 314 Hanuly Alaudidae:Larks== 2522 5224-26 52 335 324 EU 2 314 Alauda arvensis'arvensis: Skylark 2 22 Soe5 iS 2 eee ees 314 a Dita es ea Dap = 4S ope scene tS go a SL 314 Distribution. 2563 2 ee es ae a OE a 319 Otocoris alpestris arcticola: Pallid horned lark - --------------- 320 TEMS G56 ater nary nly da Nt a MN 2 320 Otocoris alpestris hoyti: Hoyt’s horned lark __---------------- 322 Habitsic i 2-2-5 sh ee IOS | Re Ee ee LS 322 Otocoris alpestris alpestris: Northern horned lark__--._-------- 325 SD tS oi Bs = ye ee re Fs et ae 325 Distribution ee Sea ae SB i ates ee 334 Otocoris alpestris leucolaema: Desert horned lark____ ~~ ~~~ -~---- 337 Habits. 52225225228 teense sere HSE CS 337 Otocoris alpestris praticola: Prairie horned larke Wh Sy heures 342 BSCE as se a eh ge te es We os 2 342 Otocoris alpestris giraudi: Texas horned lark____----~--------- 356 Habits tae Uae ine es a ee es ge Ae 356 Otocoris alpestris strigata: Streaked horned lark__------------ 357 Habitat enals be. Siode Monat Et Dea. 357 Otocoris alpestris merrilli: Dusky horned lark_-_-~-~----------- 358 Habits... 20i09re SI Bea.) obese wlth MEMES 358 Otocoris alpestris insularis: Island horned lark - -_----~--------- 361 Habits. 52322255 42455455324 ahd sis ah ARE a = 361 VI BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Order PasseRIFORMES—Continued. Family Alaudidae—Continued. Otocoris alpestris rubea: Ruddy horned lark_________________- Fl albitigt it fo nga hb bp AN fae ie eg UI ha es Ag lg Otocoris alpestris adusta: Scorched horned lark______________- FR sits So 5 ed es 0 ee a Ae i ee Otocoris alpestris leucansiptila: Sonora horned lark__________- Baits 8 oc 5 eg 5 fa eS ER Ta aa aed Se pI of Family Hirundinidae: ‘Swalldwss «2282 Sea Crea eka ee ge ne Callichelidon cyaneoviridis: Bahama swallow________________- PL A Bite fag ee ot ots Tap es ae a) 2 oS Distributions see én bee pa ea 2 eat BE Distrito ution x2 so ist ues tee gan ee Ee al eine a | Riparia. riparia riparia: Bank swallows) 9 1) wa paeee s Pats 6 el 2a ls cl a Dee ee SIL Chelidonaria urbica urbica: European martin___-________-_-__- EV sao thie eS ote fe ae ne nh gs ee Hirundo rustica rustica: European swallow------------------- Habits. 2:6): dept pret 8 del ap len tg ree OE. Petrochelidon albifrons melanogaster: Mexican cliff swallow- --_- Habits q «.. . cls a 8 Sia) meee sea Ie SP ae Bed oh pee 8 = Page 364 364 366 366 367 367 368 368 368 368 370 370 371 371 371 371 371 374 374 374 382 383 383 384 384 398 400 400 422 424 424 431 433 433 439 439 439 456 458 458 462 463 463 482 484 484 485 485 486 486 487 CONTENTS VII Order PasseRIroRMES—Continued. Family Hirundinidae—Continued. Page Petrochelidon fulva pallida: Coahuila cliff swallow___---------_- 488 Va ibs oes ae aeee ee eae oe A Le el) 2B eee a Oe. 488 | Progne subis subis: Purple martin.) 2.22.2 -L.-22i4--- =. 2h 3 489 | Habits ssa te aaa kd Sesh ee ea oe oa 489 | Distri bUtione se seek tS re She ee ee en Se a 507 | Progne subis hesperia: Western martin___.___._____--_-_______- 509 IEE Sh ie See Sk ea en a le Ah Soe 509 Progne .cryptoleuca: Cuban martin. _-_-2-- 5 228. 28a ee 511 | blaine ec ee ey Fl ee ae eee oe ML 511 | Dist itiOn ss) se eee 2 2a WS ge See See hi ee 512 Progne chalybea chalybea: Gray-breasted martin.___-________- 512 Planitneme 2 ace Ue. See re See eee ee 512 DTS te UUEO TS 5 ee ees ta 2k NE od eee 2 Sere te Nak 515 PRPeXSUORITe qOU Ue Uictg te! Nip ae a Hee NL ga Bo Ss ish hd sh 517 TNYT Ge eer Se Sree eR Date Leech an ated SiGe Why tA eae Ca 2 De I 539 INTRODUCTION This is the fourteenth in a series of bulletins of the United States National Museum on the life histories of North American birds. Previous numbers have been issued as follows: 107. Life Histories of North American Diving Birds, August 1, 1919. 118. Life Histories of North American Gulls and Terns, August 27, 1921. 121. Life Histories of North American Petrels and Pelicans and their Allies, October 19, 1922. 26. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), May 25, 1923. 130. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), June 27, 1925. 135. Life Histories of North American Marsh Birds, March 11, 1927. 142. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 1), December 31, 1927. 146. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 2), March 24, 1929. 162. Life Histories of North American Gallinaceous Birds, May 25, 1932. 167. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 1), May 3, 1987. 170. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 2), August 8, 1938. 174. Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers, May 23, 19389. 176. Life Histories of North American Cuckoos, Goatsuckers, Hummingbirds, and Their Allies, July 20, 1940. The same general plan has been followed, as explained in previous bulletins, and the same sources of information have been utilized. The nomenclature of the 1931 check-list of the American Ornitholo- gists’ Union has been followed. An attempt has been made to give as full a life history as possible of the best-known subspecies of each species and to avoid duplication by writing briefly of the others and giving only the characters of the subspecies, its range, and any habits peculiar to it. In many cases certain habits, probably common to the species as a whole, have been recorded for only one subspecies; such habits are mentioned under the subspecies on which the observations were made. The distribution gives the range of the species as a whole, with only rough outlines of the ranges of the subspecies, which in many cases cannot be ac- curately defined. The egg dates are the condensed results of a mass of records taken from the data in a large number of the best egg collections in the country, as well as from contributed field notes and from a few pub- lished sources. They indicate the dates on which eggs have been actually found in various parts of the country, showing the earliest and latest dates and the limits between which half the dates fall, indicating the height of the season. Ix x BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATE'S NATIONAL MUSEUM The plumages are described in only enough detail to enable the reader to trace the sequence of molts and plumages from birth to maturity and to recognize the birds in the different stages and at the different seasons. No attempt has been made to describe fully the adult plumages; this has been well dene already in the many manuals and State books. Partial or complete albinism is liable to occur in almost any species; for this reason, and because it is practically impossible to locate all such cases, it has seemed best not to attempt to treat this subject at all. The names of colors, when in quotation marks, are taken from Ridgway’s Color Standards and Nomenclature (1912). In the meas- urements of eggs, the four extremes are printed in bold-face type. Many who have contributed material for previous volumes have continued to cooperate. Receipt of material from over 475 contribu- tors has been acknowledged previously. In addition to these, our thanks are due to the following new contributors: W. L. Bailey, H. Brackbill, F. G. Brandenburg, I. McT. Cowan, W. V. Crich, J. R. Cruttenden, L. I. Davis, J. D. Daynes, D. Grice, E. N. Harrison, H. L. Heaton, T. A. Imhof, C. Kinzel, Mrs. F. C. Laskey, Miss Katherine Merry, E. F. Porter, P. Steib, W. E. Unglish, and Univer- sity of Colorado Libraries. If any contributor fails to find his or her name in this or some previous bulletin, the author would be glad to be advised. As the demand for these volumes is much greater than the supply, the names of those who have not contributed to the work dur- ing the previous 10 years will be dropped from the author’s mailing list. Dr. Winsor M. Tyler rendered valuable assistance by reading and indexing, for these groups, a large part of the literature on North American birds, and contributed four complete life histories. Dr. Alfred O. Gross and Alexander Sprunt, Jr., contributed two each; and Bayard H. Christy, Edward von S. Dingle, Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, Dr. Gayle Pickwell, and Robert S. Woods contributed one each. Egg measurements were furnished especially for this volume by American Museum of Natural History (Dean Amadon), Griffing Bancroft, Colorado Museum of Natural History (F. G. Branden- burg), California Academy of Sciences (James Moffitt), F. R. Decker, C. E. Doe, J. B. Dixon, Field Museum of Natural History (R. M. Barnes collection), J. H. Gillin, W. C. Hanna, H. L. Harllee, T. E. McMullen, Museum of Comparative Zoology (J. C. Greenway), Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (Margaret W. Wythe), J. S. Rowley, G. H. Stuart, 3d, and the United States National Museum (J. H. Riley). Our thanks are due also to F. Seymour Hersey for adding and figuring the egg measurements, and to W. George F. Harris for sort- INTRODUCTION XI ing over and arranging the egg dates. Through the courtesy of the Biological Survey, the services of Frederick C. Lincoln were again obtained to compile the distribution and migration paragraphs. The author claims no credit and assumes no responsibility for this part of the work. The manuscript for this bulletin was completed in July 1940. Con- tributions received since then will be acknowledged later. Only infor- mation of great importance could be added. The reader is reminded again that this is a cooperative work; if he fails to find in these volumes anything that he knows about the birds, he can blame him- self for not having sent the information to— THe AUTHOR. Mf ’ a, aah 5 ‘ At; iy: banaiqeioy pe iY site e } « CNRS bey yen! re Sid alae HHT ORL Le “y ayy ' i xe a eas «pile Mt Bs gpa? . > LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN FLYCATCH- ERS, LARKS, SWALLOWS, AND THEIR ALLIES ORDER PASSERIFORMES (FAMILIES;COTINGIDAE, TYRANNIDAE, ALAUDIDAE, AND HIRUNDINIDAE) By ArTrHur CLEVELAND Brent Taunton, Mass. Order PASSERIFORMES Family COTINGIDAE:3Cotingas PLATYPSARIS AGLAIAE ALBIVENTRIS (Lawrence) XANTUS’S BECARD HABITS Xanrvs’s becard belongs to the western Mexican race of the rose- throated becards, which are widely distributed in Mexico and Central America. The species has been split up into some seven or eight subspecies, and there are several closely related species in Jamaica and South America. Our bird (P. a. albiventris) is much paler than the type race, both above and below, the under parts being largely pure white or nearly white. The type race (P. a. aglaiae), one of the dark races, extends its range into the valley of the lower Rio Grande, in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and may some day be taken on our side of the river in southern Texas. (PI. 1.) Xantus’s becard has been taken only once within the limits of the United States and must be regarded as a very rare straggler in the mountains of southern Arizona, where W. W. Price (1888) estab- lished our only record for the species, of which he writes: On June 20, 1888, I secured an adult male, in breeding plumage, of this species in the pine forests of the Huachuca Mountains, at an elevation of about 7500 feet, and seven miles north of the Mexican boundary. I am certain there were a pair of these birds, as I heard their very peculiar notes in different places at the same time, but the locality being so extremely rough and broken I only secured the one above recorded. Several times while collecting at high altitudes I have heard bird notes that I thought were these, but they were al- 1 2 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM ways on almost inaccessible mountain sides. * * * From observing the actions of the bird I killed, I am sure its mate was in the vicinity, and probably nesting, although I have since carefully searched the place without success. This species will doubtless be found breeding in Arizona. My attention has recently been called to several sight records of what was apparently this subspecies, made by L. Irby Davis near Harlingen, Tex., in the lower Rio Grande Valley. On numerous occa- sions the bird was examined carefully through powerful binoculars, often at short range, by Mr. Davis and several other observers, so that there seems to be little doubt about the identification of the subspecies, as it was clearly seen to have a white breast. The typical rose- throated becard (Platypsaris aglaiae aglaiae), the form we should naturally expect to see there, has a gray breast. Mr. Davis has sent me a very full account of his various experiences with it, which is most convincing. He first saw, on October 18, 1937, an adult female and a young male of this species, which at first he was at loss to identify. The female soon disappeared and was never seen again. The young male was found again in March 1938 in the same locality, and in an- other locality, heavy hackberry woods about a quarter of a mile away, on April 27, 1938. Here he saw it, sometimes within 10 feet and at all angles, on May 1, 8, 15, and 28, June 6, November 19, and December 4, 1988. In explanation of this strange occurrence, he writes to me: “My theory of the becard record is that an adult female, accompanied by a very young male, came into this area in the fall of 1937 from the west. This is a regular migration route for far western birds, as a number of mountain species regularly winter here—for example, the Sierra hermit thrush. I believe that the adult moved on to the south shortly, and the juvenile who was left here took up permanent resi- dence. Since no females came back here in the spring, no breeding records have been made.” This seems to be a plausible theory, as the eastern boundary of Nuevo Leén, where albéventris has been known to occur, is only 65 miles west of Harlingen; a wandering mi- grant might easily cover that short distance. I believe Mr. Davis has not seen the bird since. William Beebe (1905) thus describes his meeting with this species in the lowlands of Colima, Mexico: One day while walking quietly through a dense part of the jungle, where tall, thick-leaved trees shut out the light and hence caused an absence of thick undergrowth, I saw a bird fly from a perch, catch an insect in mid-air and dart back. I had not found any flycatchers heretofore in this thickly wooded section, and, though my heart sank when I saw its back and wings of the usual indefinite flycatcher-hues of light gray, and knew that exact identifi- cation without a gun would be next to impossible, I approached the bird. It again flew into the air and again returned to its favourite twig, this time XANTUS’S BECARD 3 facing me, when one glance removed all doubt as to its identity; for its breast was stained a rich pink, which burned out brightly amid the dark shadows. It was the Xantus Becard, the second member of the family Cotingidae we had met. From time to time it uttered a low, indefinable lisp, and soon flew away. Three other individuals were seen after that, all solitary, all flycatching, all in such deep woods as our Wood Pewee would love. Dickey and van Rossem (1938) say of the haunts of the gray becard (P. a. latirostris) in El Salvador: “Becards are ordinarily rather quiet, sedentary birds, usually to be found in pairs in thin, second growth and about the edges of clearings and open places such as trails and roads. Their habit of sitting motionless for minutes at a time is one which may cause them to be easily over- looked. Though the normal habitat is gallery forest, they are by no means averse to brushy, cut-over land and were quite common in the taller mimosa growth about Davisadero. A few were found in the heavy, swamp forest at Puerto del Triunfo, where they were observed in the thin foliage between the ground and the thick forest crown.” Courtship.—yVery little seems to be known about the habits of our race of the rose-throated becard, and so little has been published about this and other habits of the species that it seems desirable to include here some of the observations of Alexander F. Skutch on one of the Central American races, Sumichrast’s becard (Platypsaris aglaiae sumichrasti Nelson), which probably does not differ mate- rially in its habits from our subspecies. Much that follows is quoted from his unpublished manuscript on the birds of the Caribbean lowlands, which he very kindly lent me for this purpose. While he was watching, in Guatemala, a pair of these birds build- ing the nest referred to below, he noticed a display by the male that was probably a part of the courtship performance, of which he says: “Sometimes, as he approached the female, he spread and displayed his white epaulets, which appeared very fluffy and conspicuous, standing above his shoulders and contrasting with his dark gray back. These downy white feathers on the shoulders seemed intended for her alone; except when in her presence he wore them laid flat, and so completely covered over with the dark gray plumage of his back that one would never have suspected their presence.” Nesting —Mr. Skutch’s observations on the nesting of Sumichrast’s becard follow: “About a mile from the house the road passed through a clearing in the woods, where the subterranean waters welled up diffusely through the surface and gave rise to an open, sedgy marsh, through the center of which flowed a little rill. Beside the rivulet, in the middle of the marsh, four alder trees grew ina clump. Hang- ing from the extremity of one of the finer twigs of an alder, 50 feet above ground and quite unapproachable, was a large, globular bird’s 4 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM nest, nearly a foot in diameter. When I first noticed it, in February, it appeared old and weathered, and seemed to have been constructed the previous year. “On the morning of April 20, as I passed by the marshy opening, something falling from the old nest caught my eye, and looking up- ward I beheld the male becard clinging to the structure and attempt- ing to pull a fragment from it. He flew off with some shreds of material in his bill and carried them to a new nest, only recently begun, a sprawling weft of varied constituents attached to several of the fine twiglets at the tip of a slender branch, a few yards from the old structure and very slightly lower. Working with him was another bird of the same size, which was without doubt his mate, although her plumage was strikingly different from his. “A week later I returned to watch the becards continue their task. The new nest was now nearly of the size of the old one when first I found it, a roughly globular structure, higher than wide, provided with two entrances, one facing the east, the other the south. Mean- while the becards had pulled at the old nest until every trace had fallen or had been incorporated in the new. In the remains on the ground I found fibrous plant stems, much gray lichen, spider cocoons, thistledown, and sheep wool. “After another week (the second since the structure was begun) I found the becards putting the finishing touches on their commodious nest. They had closed up the aperture on the southern side, leaving only that which looked upon the rising sun as their permanent en- trance. Black bird and brown bird continued to bring material as from the first, but their manner of disposing of it was not very dif- ferent. In an hour and a quarter the female came 24 times with material for the nest, among which were pine needles, long fibers, and downy substances. ‘Twenty times she went directly into the nest with her burden, flying skillfully through the entrance without alight- ing first on the exterior. Thrice she deposited long fibers on the roof, and once she worked them into the side of the nest. “The male brought material only 13 times, and everything he car- ried, whether fibrous or downy, he added to the roof of the nest. I did not see him enter even once. His desire to be close to his mate was far stronger than his instinct to aid her in her work, and he ac- companied her ae to and from the nest oftener than he brought anything in his bill.” After the birds had been working on the nest for over 2 weeks, and before the nest was quite finished, the tree was cut down and Mr. Skutch had a chance to examine the fallen nest. “It measured a foot in height and 9 inches in transverse diameter. The most conspicuous constitutent throughout was a kind of long, slender, much-branched gray lichen, which accounted for three-quarters of the bulk of the XANTUS’S BECARD 5 material. There were many pieces of fibrous bark of various kinds, dry and partially disintegrated; a wiry length of orange-colored dodder vine; many long, dead pine needles; many yellow spider cocoons and tufts of spiders’ silk; many tufts of sheep wool, a few downy feathers, some thistledown, a few pieces of green moss, some slender, dry vine stems, a coiled tendril, a piece of the fabric of a bushtit’s nest, probably of last year. The thickness of the walls varied from 114 to 21% inches, and the interior cavity, as large as my fist, was lined chiefly with thistledown and fibrous bark. “Three days later I found that the becards, in no way discouraged by their disaster, had begun a new nest in another tree in the same clump, only 20 feet from the site of their first ill-fated attempt. But alas poor becards. Their second nest followed the first in disaster. Their inexorable enemy, if it was the same, had climbed the tree and chopped down the supporting branch. “But the becards were as dauntless and as full of hope as Nature herself. They set about at once to build a third nest in the very tree where the second had met with disaster, directly below the position of the last. Ina week it reached its full size. This time they had better luck and succeeded in completing the nest and laying the eggs. The construction of the great globular nest of the becards was a very large undertaking for birds no bigger than a sparrow, and as usual in such cases they continued to be preoccupied with it until the eggs hatched. Almost every time that the female returned to her eggs after a brief recess she carried back some bit of material to add to her already bulky structure. The entrance to the completed nest was at the bot- tom, a little to one side of the center. Just how the aperture com- municated with the interior, and what arrangement there was to prevent the eggs rolling out when the bough swayed in the wind, it was impossible to determine without taking down the structure. “The brown becard’s periods on the eggs, as well as her recesses, were of variable duration, but usually brief. I watched her in all kinds of weather, but mostly bad, and found her one of the most restless sitters I have ever known. Her periods in the nest, during a day and a half, ranged from 3 to 38 minutes, with an average of 12. Half of her sessions lasted 8 minutes or less. Her recesses fluctuated from 2 to 19 minutes, with an average of 81%. At the end of the incubation period she remained no more constantly in the nest than at the beginning. “To enter the downward-facing entrance, with no perch or point of support below it, was not an easy matter, but the bird accom- plished the feat with admirable skill. Sometimes she started from a perch below and to one side of the nest, inclined her course sharply upward until it was vertical as she neared her goal, hit with an 324726422 6 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM audible slap the alder leaves draped below the doorway, and dis- appeared into the interior. At other times she would take off from a branch above the level of the nest, fall almost vertically downward, turn sharply upward in midair and rise directly to the entrance, de- scribing a narrow U. Whichever mode of approach she chose, her course was so well calculated from the start that it followed a per- fectly smooth and even curve, without kink or angle.” He tells me of another nest that he saw under construction at Co- lomba, Guatemala, on July 18, 1935; it was 50 feet above the ground at the end of a slender drooping twig of a shade tree in a coffee plantation. This was at an elevation of about 2,600 feet, whereas the nests described above were at an elevation of about 8,500 feet, which is about the altitudinal limit of the species. A. J. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) says of the nests of Sumichrast’s becard, as found by him in E] Salvador: “The nests are very large structures built of grass and other loose, pliable ma- terial, resembling in type nests of T'odirostrum cinereum finitimum. They are, of course, very much larger, some of them a foot long and eight inches in diameter, not including the long streamers of grass hanging from the lower part. The nest cavity is reached from a hole in the side, the entrance of which is protected by overhanging strands from the sharply sloping roof, and the cup is well padded and felted with the softest possible material. The usual site is the spray of foliage at the end of a long, drooping branch, twenty or thirty feet above the ground and, more often than not, entirely inaccessible.” There are two sets of eggs of this species in the Thayer collection in Cambridge, collected by W. Leon Dawson on June 16 and 20, 1925, near Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico; these are apparently referable to Platypsaris aglaiae albiventris, as the range of this form is given in the 1931 Check-list. In a letter to Colonel Thayer, that came with the eggs, Mr. Dawson has this to say about one of the nests: “Taken June 20, 1925, at a point about 3 miles below Tepic, and half a mile from the bridge. This nest was found on the 10th, at which time it was empty. It was placed 15 feet up and 8 or 10 out in a very slender sapling. The limb from which it depended was so slender and limber that I suc- ceeded on both occasions in bending it in for examination without cutting or breaking. The nest itself was the usual ‘bushel basket? of vegetable miscellany, closely compacted, evidently with a view to moisture resistance. It had an unusually flat top, but the entrance hole was well below the middle, and so well concealed that I did not bother to look for it till after I had hauled the nest down, it being always easier and safer to dig a new entrance into the nesting cavity XANTUS’S BECARD , and pull the sides together again after the eggs are removed. [The data slip gives the outside diameter of this nest as 14 inches and the outside depth as 12 inches, making a nearly globular structure. | “The nesting cavity proper is always placed in the lower half of the ball, and is then of very modest dimensions—about the size of the doubled fists placed together. The lining invariably contains broken fragments of soft, dry husks, which, in ensemble, act as a cushion in which the eggs are more or less imbedded. The nests, since they depend from the very tips of the branches, are sometimes subjected to violent thrashing by the wind, yet I have never found a broken egg or lost any through rough handling. “The Xantus becard almost invariably forms one member of a colony whose nests are under the protection of a pair of champion kingbirds (Zyrannus crassirostris), usually in the very tree occupied by the kingbirds. In this instance, however, the sapling containing the becard’s nest stood at one side in the shadow of a spreading higuera tree, which contained, besides the nest of the kingbird, those of two others of its wards, the Giraud flycatcher (Myiozetetes texensis texensis) and the scarlet-headed oriole (/cterus pustulatus).” Mr. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) does not mention the kingbird association but says: “It seems to be the invariable custom of this species to swing its nests close to the nests of the three common, breeding species of Jcterus, namely, gularis, sclateri, and pectoralis,” About the time that the 1931 Check-list was going to press, or at least too late for the committee to consider it, Mr. van Rossem (1930) described and named a new northern race of this species, which he called Platypsaris aglaiae richmondi. He says that the adult males are “slightly paler and very much grayer with no buffy or brownish tones”; and in the adult females, the under parts are “very much paler than in albiventris.” The range extends from Sonora, and per- haps Chihuahua, northward into southern Arizona. The record specimen from Arizona, now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, compares favorably with other specimens from Sonora and Chihuahua but is only very slightly paler than what few specimens of albiventris we have from more southern States in Mexico. So, if this new sub- species proves to be recognizable in nomenclature, we have no nesting records for the race that belongs on our list. Dr. Frank M. Chapman (1898) says that this species and its home are well known at Jalapa, Mexico, and that its nest “is some fifteen inches long and about eight in width, with an entrance at one side near the middle. It is a remarkable structure, composed largely of coarse weed-stalks and grasses, in part covered with fresh green mosses, the walls of the cavity being lined with mud. These nests 8 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM are attached to the end of a limb of one of the taller trees, and some- times overhang a public road.” See plate 1. E'ggs—The two sets of eggs in the Thayer collection consist of six and four, respectively. One egg is rather long-ovate, and the others are all typically ovate; they are only slightly glossy. In the set of six, the ground color varies from dull white to creamy white; they are thickly marked about the larger end with flecks, spots, and small blotches of dull browns, “wood brown,” “buffy brown,” or “olive-brown” and are sparingly dotted elsewhere with the same colors and with a few spots of pale gray. In the set of four, the ground color varies from “pale pinkish cinnamon” to “tilleul buff”; and the eggs are somewhat irregularly and more or less generally scrawled with long marks and dotted with minute specks of the same shades of brown. This is a rather heavily marked set of pretty eggs. Mr. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) says of the eggs of the closely related Sumichrast’s becard : Two sets of eggs were taken by the simple expedient of shooting off the slender branches to which the nests were attached and catching the nests as they fell. One of these, taken at Lake Guija on May 23, 1927, held five eggs, two of which were broken in the thirty-foot drop. The remaining three measure 23.9X17.5; 23.3169; and 22.4X7.[?] In ground color the larger two are between “vinaceous buff’ and “avellaneous” with shell markings of “bone brown,” “natal brown” and “army brown,” thinly scattered as small streaks and irregular spots over the whole surface, but coalesced into a wreath of heavy blotches about the larger end. The third egg of this set is very different, having a ground color of very light “pale olive gray” with scattered spots and small irregular markings of “mouse gray,” “quaker drab,” and various shades of pale brown. The markings are more numerous, but do not form a wreath, about the larger end. It may have been laid by a bird other than the parent of the larger two. The second nest, taken at Lake Guija, on May 24, 1927, contained a single egg nearly ready to hatch. It is very different from any of the three eggs in the first set both in size and color. It measures 25.0X16.3. In color it is immaculate “pale ochra- ceous salmon” with a solid cap of minute, coffee-colored spots at the larger end. The measurements of 22 eggs of the species average 23.2 by 16.9 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.0 by 17.9, 24.0 by 18.1, 20.3 by 15.5, and 21.0 by 14.9 millimeters. Young.—Mr. Skutch learned by close observation that the male takes no part in the incubation of the eggs; he never saw him enter the nest during the course of incubation. But he does his share in the care and feeding of the young. Of this he writes (MS.): “There came a day when the becards no longer brought leaves and lengths of vine to the nest, but appeared to approach it with empty bills. By looking carefully through the binoculars, I could now and then discover a portion of some small insect projecting from XANTUS’S BECARD 9 the mandibles. Doubtless at other times they brought insects so small that they could be carried completely inside the mouth, and therefore passed unseen. Now at last the male began to enter the nest. “As the nestlings became older, their parents brought them por- tions that were larger and more easily discerned. Small green larvae were the things that I most often recognized, and there were a number of small butterflies and moths. The male and female were equally assiduous in feeding the nestlings, but only the female brooded them. The becards hunted in the manner characteristic of their family; that is, they remained quietly perched until they sighted their prey, then made a rapid dart to snatch it from the air, or from the foliage upon which the creature was crawling, without themselves alighting there.” When the nestlings were 10 days old Mr. Skutch began to hear their weak little calls, and soon they could utter the typical calls of the adults, but in a weaker voice; eventually they became rather noisy nestlings. When the parents were last seen carrying food to the young, the latter had been in the nest 18 or 19 days. Some- time during the next 2 days, the nest was broken open, after which nothing was seen of either parents or young; thus the story of these dauntless becards ended. Plumages.—I have seen no specimens of albiventris or richmondi in either nestling or juvenal plumages, but, as the plumage changes are doubtless similar to those of the other races, with due allowance made for subspecific differences, the following remarks by Mr. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) are significant: Sequence of plumage in the males has been worked out with the combined series of latirostris and sumichrasti, since the two are identical in this respect. Two juvenal males are identical in coloration with the black-headed phase common to both juvenal and adult females. After the postjuvenal molt the young males resemble the black-headed females, except that the upperparts are darker and more grayish brown, the underparts are paler and more grayish buffy, and the throats are frequently tinged with pale salmon-pink. The pri- maries, secondaries, and rectrices are not replaced at this molt, but are worn until the first annual molt the subsequent fall. During the first winter and spring, occasional feathers are added to the body plumage (there seem at this stage always to be a few pin feathers about the head) and in the spring the innermost tertials are renewed, but there is no definite spring molt which results in a change of the type of plumage worn. Males, at least, breed in this immature plumage. Bight examples of this one-year-old-stage were taken. They were collected in September, October, January, April, May, July, and August; those of the last two months are in the first annual molt. The second-year plumage, which is attained at the first annual molt, is very similar to that of the fully adult male, but the underparts and rump are strongly tinged with brownish or olive, the rectrices show terminal edgings 10 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM or mottling of cinnamon and the throat averages less extensively pink. The abbreviated ninth primary is acquired at this time. Of these second-year males there are six specimens taken in January, February, May, and September, besides two critical examples which show the transition from first-year to second-year plumage. Our record specimen, taken June 20, 1888, in the Huachuca Moun- tains, Ariz., by W. W. Price, is a young male in second-year plum- age; it is largely in adult plumage, but the rose of the throat is more restricted and paler, “light jasper red” instead of “rose red,” and the wings and tail are of the immature type, pale and worn. It is labeled albwentris but is apparently referable to richmondi. Both adults and immature birds evidently have the complete annual molt in September and October. Food.—Mr. van Rossem (1938) records the stomach contents in 10 specimens of Jatirostris; he found berry seeds and fruit pulp in six stomachs; berry seeds, pulp, and insects in three; and insects exclusively in only one stomach. Mr. Davis says (MS.) of the bird he watched: “It ate only insects, as far as I could observe. On one occasion, I watched it swallow a large insect that required consider- able effort to get down. This appeared to be a dragonfly, and the wings stuck out of the bird’s mouth for some time, as the insect’s body was slowly choked down.” Behavior —By its general behavior Mr. Davis, at first, thought that the strange bird might be an immature Derby flycatcher or a freak crested flycatcher. He noted that the Derby flycatchers and green jays showed considerable hostility toward it, but the becard made very little attempt to defend its territory against them; it would give its call repeatedly when approached by them, but would quickly fly away if they became quarrelsome. “It tended to keep hidden in the thick foliage of large trees and never perched out in the open, as do the flycatchers.” Voice.—Mr. Price (1888) says: “Their note reminds one of the song of Stephens’s Vireo (Vireo huttoni stephensi), but is not so long continued, and is harsher.” The bird observed by Dr. Beebe (1905) uttered from time to time “a low, indefinable lisp.” Mr. Davis writes to me as follows regarding his impressions of the call of the becard: “It is quite a lot softer than the whistle of the crested flycatcher and is of entirely different quality and is more drawn out. While very soft, the call carries well and can be heard for some distance. From what I have observed, it seems that the adults almost always use some preliminary chattering notes, which are still softer than the main call or seem to be so because they are of lower pitch. Possibly the whole call could be stated as chu-chu-chu-chu, tee€-o00000, or chatter, chatter, chee-oooooo. The preliminary notes EASTERN KINGBIRD Pl are low and rapid, and the latter part starts high, though rather thin as compared to the crested flycatcher, and rapidly drops down and trails off to nothing in the drawn out 000000.” DISTRIBUTION Range.—Western Mexico, accidental in southern Arizona; probably only slightly migratory. The range of Xantus’s becard extends north to northern Sonora (Saric, San Rafael, and Guirocoha) ; and southern Chihuahua (San Rafael). From this region it is found south to Morelos (Puente de Ixtla) and Guerrero (Chilpancingo, Acapulco, and Coyuca). It appears to be resident north to southern Sonora (Alamos and Tesia) and southern Chihuahua (San Rafael). Other races of this species are found in eastern Mexico on the Tres Marias Islands, and in other Central American countries. Casual records—A single specimen has been collected in the United States, a bird obtained on June 20, 1888, in the pine forests of the Huachuca Mountains, Ariz. According to Ridgway (1907) a specimen of this race was collected in March at Cerro de la Silla, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, which is east of the usual range. One bird was seen by L. Irby Davis near Harlingen, Tex., on numerous occasions in 1937 and 1938 (see account of it above). Egg dates —Mexico: 6 records, May 8 to June 20. Family TYRANNIDAE: Tyrant Flycatchers TYRANNUS TYRANNUS (Linnaeus) EASTERN KINGBIRD PLATES 2—4 HABITS CONTRIBUTED BY WINSOR MarretT TYLER When we think of the kingbird, even if it be winter here in the north, and he is for the time thousands of miles away in the Tropics, we picture him as we see him in summer, perched on the topmost limb of an apple tree, erect in his full-dress suit—white tie, shirt-front, and waistcoat—upright, head thrown back, his eye roaming over his domain, on the watch for intruders. We see him sail out into the air, moving slowly, although his wings are quivering fast, then gaining speed and mounting higher as he comes near his enemy—a crow, a hawk, any bird that has stirred his resentment. We hear his high, sibilant, jerky voice ring out a challenge; we watch him dive at the big bird, striking for his back, and drive him off, and then come 12 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM slithering back to his watchtower, proclaiming victory with an explosion of stuttering notes. Spring.—Unlike most of our migrant birds, the kingbird arrives in New England unobtrusively—about the tenth of May in the lati- tude of Boston—and for a few days remains quiet, both in voice and demeanor. We are apt to see our first kingbird of the season sitting silent and alone on a fencepost or a wire or making a short flight out from a tree and back again. It appears listless, as if not interested in its surroundings, as if it were tired. There is none of the exuberance of the Baltimore oriole, in full song when he returns to his breeding ground, or of the showy arrival of the bronzed grackles as they come pouring into New England in vast clattering hordes. It is not long, however, before the kingbird throws off his lethargy and appears in his true colors—the tyrant of tyrants. Alexander F. Skutch has sent Mr. Bent an excellent account of the kingbird’s northward passage through Central America, where, dur- ing the early stages of their long journey, the birds are concentrated in large numbers. He says:“Although only a bird of passage through the great isthmus that stretches from Tehuantepec to Darien, the kingbird, because of its large size, active habits, and its custom of migrating by day in flocks, is the most conspicuous of the flycatch- ers that visit Central America from the north. The birds appear to enter Central America from their winter home in South America about April 1, and the last do not leave the region until nearly the middle of May. “Kingbirds travel chiefly in the early morning and the latter half of the afternoon. At these times I have on numerous occasions watched them fly overhead in loose-straggling flocks of irregular formation, sometimes containing, according to a rough estimate, more than a hundred individuals. Thus, soon after dawn on April 28, 1935, as I was paddling along the shore of Barro Colorado Island in the Canal Zone, a large flock of kingbirds flew across Gatun Lake from east to west, or from the South American to the North Amer- can side. They came to rest in the tops of some small trees from which a few birds made sallies into the air to snatch up insects, but after a pause of a minute or so they continued on toward the west. “During both years of my residence at Rivas, in the deep, narrow, north-and-south valley of the Rio Buena Vista in southern Costa Rica, I witnessed numerous northward flights of kingbirds in April, always in the afternoon. On April 18, 1936, about half-past four in the afternoon, I beheld several multitudinous flocks of small birds come up the valley from the south, a few minutes apart, flying high and straight as if they were journeying. There were barn swallows, rough-winged swallows, kingbirds, and small black swifts. The EASTERN KINGBIRD 13 kingbirds were the first to drop out of the flock. They settled in some low scattered trees to rest. There were scores of them, and they made a substantial addition to the large company of kingbirds already in the valley. “On both their northward and southward passage through Central America the kingbirds may break their journey and delay for con- siderable periods in some locality which pleases them. Although it is possible that the kingbirds one sees during the course of several weeks in the same vicinity may represent a population whose mem- bers change from day to day, the fact that they roost every night in the same spot is to me rather convincing evidence that the same individuals linger for more than one night’s lodging. “During the spring migration of 1936 the kingbirds roosted nightly for nearly a month, from April 16 to May 11, on a small islet covered with low trees, behind my cabin. I frequently watched them congregate for the night or begin their day’s activities. On April 17, late in the afternoon, a large, straggling flock settled in the riverwood trees on the brink of the stream and from these sallied in their spectacular manner into the open space above the channel, or high into the air, to capture flying insects. Long before dark they began to congregate on the little island. They did not immediately settle to rest but wove gracefully among the branches and the long leaves of the wild cane and skimmed above the foliage to snatch up some insect that blundered temptingly close to them. Finally, as dusk deepened, they became quiet among the inner recesses of the foliage where they were so well concealed that I could not, even with my glasses, pick out a single one. While in Central America they rarely utter a sound.” Courtship —Ralph Hoffmann (1927) says that the kingbird’s “mat- ing performance consists in flying upward, and then tumbling sud- denly in the air, repeating the manoeuvre again and again, all the time uttering its shrill ery.” Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1920a) says of it: “The Kingbird executes a series of zig-zag and erratic flights, emitting at the same time a harsh double scream. This is a true courtship flight song.” These flights take place at no great height from the ground—15 or 20 feet, perhaps, above the top of an apple tree. The dives are usually short, quick dips, accompanied by accented notes, and in between them the wings flutter jerkily as the bird rises again or progresses a short distance on a level. Occasionally, however, the dip is much deeper—a long, slow dive. I find in my notes of July 28, 1909, that I observed their curious flight evolutions many times. They flew out from a treetop, half flying and half hovering, then, with wings almost still, but just quivering, they slowly dropped 14 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM almost to the ground, the while jerking out in a high, squeaky, tremulous voice their /7-k7-ki, etc. A. Dawes DuBois wrote to Mr. Bent of a pair of kingbirds courting on May 21, 1910. “One of them,” he says, “went through some very remarkable antics in the air, turning backward somer- saults while flying.” I once watched two kingbirds not 20 feet away whose behavior strongly suggested a courtship of milder form than the wild display in the air. Both were adult birds. One, a male I thought, was perched not far from the other with feathers puffed out and head erect and drawn back a little way. He twitched his tail sharply downward over and over again, at the same time fanning it out. These actions were plainly addressed to the other bird. Twice he flew toward her(?), and she(?) retreated. Both birds were silent except when once or twice one gave some sibilant notes. These notes were not uttered while the bird was posturing; they were not uttered with any emphasis; and they did not suggest the kingbird’s song at all. Although the actions of this bird might well be suitable to court- ship—it is to be observed that the two ornamented parts of the plumage (the crown patch and the tail) were displayed—the date (July 25, 1917) is too late to expect courtship with breeding intent. I do not doubt, however, that the performance represented some form of nuptial display. Nesting—Like many birds whose breeding range extends over a widely diverse country, such as the mourning dove, the kingbird chooses a variety of nesting sites. Here in eastern Massachusetts where a large part of the country consists of farmland, orchards, acres of scattered trees, and woodland of small, thin growth, a typically sit- uated kingbird’s nest is built well up in an apple tree, often on a horizontal limb, generally well out from the trunk, almost always shaded by branches higher up. It is a rather large nest for the size of the bird, and a little bulky. The outside is rough and unkempt, a heap of twigs, straw, and twine, not finished off like the nest of the wood pewee. Another favorite location here is in trees or low shrubs growing along a river, often on branches overhanging the water. In the West, however, in regions where there are few trees, the king- bird may place its nest in the open, on a fencepost or a stump, in a situation without concealment or shade. Even in the East, the bird occasionally resorts to this practice. Fred H. Kennard (1898) reports such a case of nesting, in Bedford, Mass., a farming district, on a fencepost “within 35 feet of the rail- road, and immediately beside a road, over which men are travelling back and forth all day long. * * * This post was made of an EASTERN KINGBIRD 15 abandoned railroad tie, whose end had been somewhat hollowed by decay. * * * The top of the post was only about four feet above the ground.” The kingbird often shows its fondness for water by nesting on stumps or snags on submerged land. For example, Ralph Works Chaney (1910), writing of Michigan, says: “This species might be considered almost aquatic in its nesting habits, as the nests were in- variably placed in stumps projecting out of the water, often at a considerable distance from the shore,” and William Brewster (1937) speaks of kingbirds breeding “along stub-lined shores bordering on northerly reaches of the Lake [Umbagog]| or on shallow lagoons in the heavily-timbered bottom-lands of the Lower Megalloway. Those frequenting all such localities nested mostly within hollow tree- trunks. * * * Of the nests thus placed some were sunk eight or ten inches below the upper rim of the cavity and hence invisible save from above, others so near it that the sitting bird, and perhaps also a small portion of the nest, could be seen by any one passing beneath.” Of eccentric situations where kingbirds have nested, we may note two instances in which a nest was built on the reflector of an electric street light—A. C. Gardner (1921) and Rolf D. Rohwer (1933)—and a very remarkable report of its nesting in a rain gauge, Lincoln Ellison (1936). Stranger still, perhaps, are two cases of kingbirds appropriating oriole’s nests for their own use. Henry Mousley (1916) tells of a pair of kingbirds that “took possession of an old Baltimore Oriole’s nest in the top of a maple tree in front of my house, in which strange home they laid a third set of eggs and brought up a brood,” and Clarence Cottam (1938) cites “the successful occu- pancy by an Eastern Kingbird * * * of a deserted hanging nest of a, Bullock Oriole:.**. * ‘The nest..* * * ‘was attached about 12 feet above the ground to some terminal and partly drooping branches of a cottonwood tree.” Edward R. Ford (MS.) writes that he saw a kingbird sitting on a nest which had been built and used by cedar waxwings the year before. The height above the ground of the kingbird’s nest varies consid- erably: J. K. Jensen (1918) gives the extremes as “from two to sixty feet.” Of “a typical nest” taken in Minnesota, Bendire (1895) says: It “measures about 514 inches in outer diameter by 314 inches in depth; its inner diameter is 3 inches by 134 inches deep. Its exterior is con- structed of small twigs and dry weed stems, mixed with cottonwood down, pieces of twine, and a little hair. The inner cup is lined with fine dry grass, a few rootlets, and a small quantity of horsehair.” Continuing, he says: “Mr. E. A. McIlhenny tells me that in the willow swamps in southern Louisiana these birds construct their nests en- 16 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM tirely out of willow catkins, without any sticks whatever, and that the nests can be squeezed together in the hand like a ball.” Here in New England, where the birds breed in orchards and dooryards and near farm buildings, they often pick up bits of cloth, straw, feathers and pieces of string and add them to their nest. J. J. Murray (MS.) says that in Lexington, Va., a favorite material is sheep wool and that the birds often nest in trees along the edge of pastures where wool is easily obtained. Kingbirds appear to have a very strong attachment to the nesting site they have chosen and return year after year to its immediate vicinity. Roy Latham (1924) gives a striking illustration of this tendency at his home on Long Island, N. Y. In spite of “develop- ment” that changed the face of the country, the kingbirds did not desert it. He says: “The wild cherries are gone, the old line-fences are gone, and the Bob-whites are gone. But year after year a pair of Kingbirds return each May and carefully select a nesting-tree. Every tree on the homestead has been used—some thrice over. In all those thirty-five summers the Kingbirds have not failed once to bring off a full brood. Yet in the entire period there has never been a second pair breeding on the premises, or to my knowledge, making any attempt to nest within the limits of the yard.” Kingbirds are averse to having another pair of kingbirds nest near them, but they do not object to nesting near other species of birds. As an extreme illustration of this habit, Charles M. Morse (1931) published a photograph of two occupied nests 14 inches apart, one a kingbird’s, the other a robin’s. He says: “The two families lived in perfect harmony.” S. F. Rathbun wrote to Mr. Bent: “Once, when I was in eastern Washington, I ran across a nest of this kingbird in a small tree at the edge of a stream. Within 300 feet a pair of Arkansas fly- catchers had a nearly completed nest in another tree, and not far away a pair of ash-throated flycatchers were nesting in a box placed under the eaves of a dwelling. To me it was of interest to see these three species of flycatchers nesting so near each other.” M. G. Vaiden, of Rosedale, Miss., wrote to Mr. Bent: “I found lo- cated in a large native pecan tree a nest of the kingbird, wood pewee, red-eyed vireo, two English sparrow nests, and the nest of a Balti- more oriole. All seemed more or less in perfect accord except the wood pewee, whose nesting territory had been crowded by the home of one of the sparrows. The wood pewee seemed to do most of the fighting, with little if any attention paid by the sparrow. Each probably had a vertical and horizontal area that they defended, should the occasion arise.” EASTERN KINGBIRD 17 According to Bendire (1895), “the male assists in the construction of the nest, and to some extent in the duties of incubation. He re- lieves the female from time to time to allow her to feed, guards the nesting site, and is usually perched on a limb close by, where he has a good view of the surroundings.” A most unusual nesting site for the eastern kingbird is reported, in a letter to Mr. Bent, by Capt. H. L. Harllee, of Florence, S$. C. This pair of birds built a nest and laid a set of eggs in a gourd that was suspended from a pole at the edge of a yard in Beaufort County. The gourd, such as are commonly used by purple martins in the South, happened to have large openings on two opposite sides, which gave the birds convenient entrance and exit, as well as some visibility while on the nest. Eggs—([Avruor’s nore: The eastern kingbird lays three to five eggs to a set; three is the commonest number and five decidedly un- common or rare. The eggs are commonly ovate, with variations to- ward short-ovate or elongate-ovate or, rarely, elliptical-ovate. They are only slightly glossy. The ground color is pure white, creamy white (most commonly), or pinkish white, and very rarely decidedly pink. Asa rule they are quite heavily and irregularly marked with large and small spots, or small blotches, but some are quite evenly sprinkled with fine dots. The markings are in various shades of brown, “chestnut-brown,” “chocolate,” “liver brown,” “claret brown,” or “cinnamon,” with underlying spots and blotches of different shades of “Quaker drab,” “brownish drab,” “heliotrope gray,” or “lavender.” Very rarely an egg is nearly immaculate. The measurements of 50 eggs average 24.2 by 17.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 27.9 by 18.8, 23.6 by 19.8, 22.1 by 18.5, and 23.9 by 16.2 millimeters. ] Young.——Hatched from what some oologists consider the most beautiful of eggs, the young kingbirds remain in the nest for about 2 weeks. Gilbert H. Trafton (1908) gives the time as 10 to 11 days, and A. D. Whedon (1906) as about 18 days. Most writers, however, agree on 13 to 14 days as the average time. Francis Hobart Herrick (1905) studied the nest life of the kingbird in detail from a blind placed close to a nest which, with the limb supporting it, he had moved a short distance to facilitate observa- tion. The nest contained four young birds, two of them transferred from another nest. Writing of the day when the nestlings were 10 days old, he says: In the space of four hours * * * the parents made one hundred and eight visits to the nest and fed their brood ninety-one times. In this task the female bore the larger share, bringing food more than fifty times, although the male made a good showing, having a record of thirty-seven visits to his credit. 18 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM * ¥* * During the first hour the young were fed on an average of once in one and a half minutes. * * * The mother brooded eighteen times, and altogether for the space of one hour and twenty minutes. The nest was cleaned seven times, and the nest and young were constantly inspected and picked all over by both birds, although the female was the more scrupulous in her atten- tions. * * * One of the birds while perched near by was seen to disgorge the indigestible parts of its insect food, a common practice with flycatchers, both old and young. * * * The last [young bird] to leave [the nest] flew easily two hundred feet down the hillside on the thirteenth of July [i. e., when 18 days old]. Raymond S. Deck (1934) speaks of the effect of sunlight on the behavior of the young birds. He says: “The nestlings appeared to respond to the sun in a quite sunflowerly way. Early in the morning they lay in the nest facing the rising sun. As the morning wore on and the sun moved south, the birds shifted their position to face constantly toward it. During the hottest part of the day they lay facing north-east, directly away from the sun, but when evening came the birds were lying with their faces toward the sunset. On every subsequent day when I visited the nest the young birds were facing east in the morning and they always went to sleep at night facing west.” Early in July, here in New England, fledgling kingbirds are full- grown, although their tails may be rather short. We may see a brood of them perched not far apart on a wire, or on an exposed branch of a tree, waiting for their parents to bring them food. They keep up a frequently repeated, high, short, emphatic note, tzee, snapping their bills open and shut as they utter it, showing the bright orange color of their throats, and when they see the old bird approaching, they lean eagerly forward, and their voices become rough and harsh. At times they fly out and meet the parent bird in the air, where, to judge from their actions, food is transferred to them with a good deal of chippering and fluttering. Burns (1915) gives the incubation period as 12 to 13 days, and several other observers agree with him closely. Plumages.—| AutHor’s NoTE: The natal down that soon appears on the otherwise naked nestling is “mouse gray.” The young bird in juvenal plumage is much like the adult, but there is no orange crown patch; the nape and rump are faintly edged with “cinnamon”; the wing coverts are edged with pale buff, and the other paler edgings of the wing feathers are pale buffy or yellowish white; the white tips of the tail feathers are tinged with brownish, especially the outer ones; there is a grayish band, tinged with buff, across the upper breast ; and the two outer primaries are not attenuated as in the adult. A postjuvenal molt begins before the birds migrate, but the birds go south before even the body molt is complete. Dr. Dwight (1900) EASTERN KINGBIRD 19 says: “Birds taken in Central America, unfortunately without dates, show that the species reaches the tropics without any moult of the flight feathers or of the wing coverts and often in full juvenal plumage. It is an interesting problem whether the wings and tail are renewed at the end of the postjuvenal moult or at a prenuptial moult, the former conclusion being most probable. A bird from South America taken March 31 (which may possibly be an adult) shows a recently completed moult the sheaths still adhering to the new primaries.” That young birds have a complete postjuvenal molt during fall, winter, and early spring is shown by the fact that they arrive in spring in fresh plumage, including the two outer emarginate primaries (in the male), the new white-tipped tail, and the orange crown patch. Young birds, which were alike in juvenal plumage, now show the sex differences of the adults. The molts of the adults apparently follow the same sequence as in the young birds. Adult males have the two outer primaries at- tenuated, or emarginated, and the adult females only one, as a rule. There is not enough winter material available to work out the molts with certainty. | Food.—F. E. L. Beal (1897) summarizes the results of his analysis of the kingbird’s food thus: “Three points seem to be clearly estab- lished in regard to the food of the kingbird—(1) that about 90 per cent consists of insects, mostly injurious species; (2) that the alleged habit of preying upon honeybees is much less prevalent than has been supposed, and probably does not result in any great damage; and (3) that the vegetable food consists almost entirely of wild fruits which have no economic value. These facts, taken in connection with its well-known enmity for hawks and crows, entitle the kingbird to a place among the most desirable birds of the orchard or garden.” In regard to the eating of bees, Beal (1897) states: “The Biological Survey has made an examination of 281 stomachs [of kingbirds] collected in various parts of the country, but found only 14 containing remains of honeybees. In these 14 stomachs there were in all 50 honeybees, of which 40 were drones, 4 were certainly workers, and the remaining 6 were too badly broken to be identified as to sex.” In a later paper Beal (1912) lists over 200 kinds of insects found in kingbirds’ stomachs, and the fruit or seeds of 40 species of plants. To itemize the kingbird’s diet more in detail, we may mention the following: Hairy caterpillars are reported by Mary Mann Miller (1899), who says: “The Flycatchers darted upon the caterpillars as they swung suspended by their webs or fed on pendant leaves.” H. H. Kopman (1915) states that “in the piney sections of south- eastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, the Kingbird feeds 20 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM extensively in the fall on the ripened seeds of the two common native magnolias (I. foetida and M. virginiana).” William L. Bailey (1915), speaking of the feeding of nestling kingbirds, says: “To my amazement a large green dragon-fly with great head and eyes, measuring across the wings at least four inches, was jammed wings and all, into the mouth of one of the little ones. After a few minutes, as if for dessert, a large red cherry fully one- half inch in diameter was rammed home in the same manner.” Robert T. Morris (1912) relates the following: “There is a sassa- fras tree * * * at my country-place at Stamford, Connecticut, which bears a heavy crop of fruit every year, and about the last of August the Kingbirds gather in numbers, spending the entire day in the tree, and strip it entirely of its fruit. * * * At the time when they are gorging themselves with sassafras berries, they seem to devote little time to catching insects.” Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1938) includes “small fishes” as an item in the kingbird’s diet. The kingbird captures most of its food by pursuing a flying insect and catching it in the air. Rarely, it snaps up a larva suspended by a thread; and Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1920b) reports: “I have seen a Kingbird swoop down and pick up an insect from the calm surface of a pond without wetting a feather. I have also seen one flying and picking off berries from a shad-bush without alighting.” Of “terrestrial feeding kingbirds” William Youngworth (1937) says: On June 3, 4, and 5, 1935, the Waubay Lakes region in northeastern South Dakota was swept by high winds from the north and the temperature during the night dropped to near the freezing point. Heavy frost was visible on two mornings and it was such weather that caught the last migrating wave of kingbirds and orioles. It was a common sight to find hundreds of Common Kingbirds, Arkansas Kingbirds, and Baltimore Orioles in the lee of every small patch of trees or brush. The dust-filled air was not only extremely cold, but apparently was void of insect life. Thus the birds resorted to ground feeding, and here they hopped around picking up numbed insects. Usually the birds just hopped in a rather awkward manner from one eatch to the next. However, occasionally the kingbirds would flutter and hop while picking up an insect. Behavior —Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1938) exactly describes the habitat of the kingbird when he writes that it “lives in the more open country, and is not fond of the deep forests. Cultivated lands, such as orchards and the borders of fields, highways, brushy pastures, or even open woodlands, are frequented also. It is not usually found in any considerable flocks, but during migration sometimes many are found within a relatively small area.” If we were limited to one adjective to suggest the kingbird’s charac- ter as impressed on us by his behavior, I think most of us would use the word “defiant”; if we were allowed one more, perhaps we should EASTERN KINGBIRD IAN add “fearless.” In contrast to most birds, whose concern is restricted to the immediate vicinity of their nest, the kingbird’s attention reaches far out. His perch always commands a good view of the surrounding country; he is always on the watch for the enemy. He reminds us of those delightful young men in Romeo and Juliet who, let a Capulet appear, flash out their swords and rush into a fight. The kingbird seems to consider any big bird his enemy; he does not wait for one to come near but, assuming the offensive, dashes out at crow, vulture, or a big hawk—size seems to make no difference to him—and practically always wins, A. D. DuBois (MS.) testifies to the genuineness of the kingbird’s attack thus: “The kingbird can be more than a mere annoyance to its traditional enemy. I saw a pair attack a crow which was flying near their nest. They made him croak, and one of them perched on his back and pulled out a lot of his feathers, which came floating down.” Gilbert H. Trafton (1908) also speaks of a fierce attack upon him- self at a nest he was watching. He says: “Whenever I approached near enough the nest tc set up the camera, the Kingbirds flew at me furiously, poising themselves above me and then darting quickly at my head, now coming near enough to strike me with their bill. In no case was blood drawn, but, as they usually struck about the same spot each time, I was glad of an excuse to cover my head with a cloth while focusing the camera. * * * They never attacked me unless both birds were present, and even then only one came near enough to strike me.” Frederick C. Lincoln (1925), writing of North Dakota, says: “On July 20 I watched a Kingbird attack a Hawk and saw it alight on the back of the larger bird, to be carried 40 to 50 yards before again taking flight.” J. J. Murray (MS.) reports a similar observation: “Near Lexington, Virginia, I saw a kingbird chase an American egret for a hundred yards or more, practically riding on its back.” Florence Merriam Bailey (1918) speaks thus of a kingbird attack- ing so swift a bird as a black tern: “I saw [the tern] beating over the open slough close by when suddenly chased after by a King- bird, chased so closely and persistently and rancorously that if he were not pecked on the back, a deep dent was made in his gray matter, for he fled precipitately through the sky, going out into its grayness.” John R. Williams (1935) tells of a kingbird which repeatedly attacked a low-flying airplane. He says: “The courage and audacity of this bird in attacking a noisy and relatively huge airplane was certainly extraordinary.” Isaac E. Hess (1910) states: “I have seen the Kingbird victor in every battle except one. In this dispute ‘Tyrannus’ beat a hasty retreat from the onslaughts of an angry Yellow Warbler.” 324726—42-__-3 22 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM William Brewster (1937) relates another instance of the defeat of Tyrannus: Despite his notorious daring in attacking hawks and crows, the Kingbird sometimes turns tail and flees ignominiously, like many another bully, when boldly faced by birds no larger or better fitted for combat than himself. An instance of this happened to-day [August 10, 1907] when I saw a Sapsucker pursue and overtake a Kingbird in a cove of the Lake [Umbagog]. * * * As the two were passing me within ten yards I could see the Sapsucker deal oft-repeated blows with his sharp bill at the back of the Kingbird who was doubling and twisting all the while, with shrill and incessant outery. * * * After the birds had separated the Sapsucker alighted very near me on a stub, when I was surprised to note that it was a young one, apparently of female sex. The kingbird’s flight varies considerably both in form and tempo. In his quiet hours he may flutter calmly and steadily along, neither rising nor falling, his long axis parallel to the ground, moving slowly and evenly, his wings quivering in short, quick vibrations—as Francis Beach White (1937) says, “hovering all the way just over the top of the tall grass.” At other times, in his wilder moments, to quote Ned Dearborn (1903), “the bird becomes a veritable fury, and dashes upward toward the clouds, crying fiercely, and ever and anon reaching a frenzied climax, when its cry is prolonged into a kind of shriek, and its flight a zigzag of blind rage. These exhibi- tions are frequently given in the teeth of the premonitory gust before a thunder storm, as if in defiance of the very elements.” I find an entry in my notes that shows how seldom kingbirds move from place to place except by the use of their wings: “June 1910. A pair of kingbirds spent much of their time one afternoon feeding in a newly cultivated field of about an acre in extent. They sta- tioned themselves on small lumps of earth, sometimes near together and sometimes in different parts of the field, and watched for insects. When they saw one they flew to capture it and then returned to the same little elevation, or to another one. The wind was blowing hard, and invariably they alighted facing it, turning just before perching. I did not, during half an hour or so, see either bird take a step or make a hop. They always flew, even to a point less than a foot away.” Francis H. Allen (MS.) states: “Kingbirds sometimes hover, facing into the wind as they feed, taking insects from the air. Sometimes a strong breeze will blow them back, so that they seem to be flying backward.” See also a note on flight under “Fall.” It is the custom of the kingbird to bathe by dashing down over and over onto the surface of water as he flies along, as swifts and swallows do. Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1920b) remarks: “It is EASTERN KINGBIRD 23 not uncommon to see a Kingbird plunge several times into the water from a post or tree, evidently for a bath, and afterward preen itself. I have also seen this method of bathing in a small shallow birds’ bath.” Of the brilliant feathers on the kingbird’s crown, made visible only by the parting of the surrounding feathers, J. A. Spurrell (1919) says: “I have never seen the red crest on a living kingbird except when displayed by a victorious male after defeating a rival.” Bayard H. Christy (1932), however, gives a vivid picture of a king- bird using his crest for intimidation: On the river side of the [golf] course, at a clump of young pines, a Kingbird was hovering and screaming, and, as I came near, I easily discovered the nest, about twenty feet up, on a bough of one of the trees. As I stood at the base of the tree, at the edge of the circle of the lower branches, the Kingbird came plunging from above, directly toward my upturned face, and as it did so it flashed out broadly its brilliant vermilion crown-patch. The effect was aston- ishing: it gave the impression of a gaping mouth, venomous and menacing, and, in spite of myself, I bowed my head before the attack. The bird did not indeed strike, but passing me narrowly it rose to repeat the manoeuvre. This was a sudden demonstration of an unsuspected value of this splendid but ordinarily concealed item of decoration. Is it decoration? It seemed to me that a wandering squirrel or snake, potent for mischief, might well by such a display be driven off, before ever it had found the prize. Voice——The voice of the kingbird is shrill, not overloud, with only moderate carrying power and without a wide range of pitch. The letters tzi suggest the simplest of his notes, although perhaps Bendire’s (1895) “pthee” is as good a rendering. This note is delivered as a single, short, sharp exclamation, and when lengthened or modulated in pitch forms the basis of several more complicated utterances. It is often given alone, repeated slowly over and over with a short pause between each note, or repeated rapidly as a high, squeaky chatter, and it is frequently combined with its lengthened form tzece, preceding or following the longer note, which is strongly accented. Tz, tzee is a common form. Such phrases are characteristic of the bird when in a quiet mood, but when he is aroused to belligerency we hear him utter another note as he flies out to battle, a double note with falling inflection (often rendered kipper) cried out in long series which alternate with emphatic shrieks. This battle cry is somewhat similar to the courtship song mentioned under “Courtship.” Rev. J. Hibbert Langille (1884) indicates very well the mode of the kingbird’s enunciation when he says: “His sharp screeping note [is] coughed out and accompanied by a jerk of the tail.” The formal song of the kingbird is prettily described by Olive Thorne Miller (1892), who was the first to publish an account of 24 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM it. She heard it, “a sweet though simple strain,” early in the morning when, as she says, “it was so still that the flit of a wing was almost startling.” She continues: “It began with a low king- bird ‘K-r-r-r’ (or rolling sound impossible to express by letters), without which I should not have identified it at first, and it ended with a very sweet call of two notes, five tones apart, the lower first, after a manner suggestive of the phoebe—something like this: ‘Kr-r-r-r-r-ree-bé’ !” I remember the first time I heard the kingbird’s song. It was on July 8, 1908. I was walking home early in the morning from a professional engagement. It was almost dark; an hour before sunrise; about 3 o’clock. Soon the robin chorus began feebly; the east was becoming pale now, and, after a little, a song sparrow and a catbird woke in the dim bushes beside the road. I took a short cut across a meadow, and as I was feeling my way along, I heard a new bird note break out of the darkness in front of me. The bird was beyond the meadow on a rise of ground where I knew there were shade trees, and farther on was an orchard. I suspected the singer at once, but I was not sure. The voice was high and sharp, with the squeaky quality characteristic of Tyrannus, but the arrangement of the notes was wholly strange. They formed a short musical theme of three syllables repeated again and again with a long pause after each one. As I came nearer, however, I found that a part of each pause was filled in by a series of high, short, stuttering notes, given in a hesitating fashion. These notes led up to and immediately preceded the clearly enun- ciated, emphatic theme. I wrote down the whole song as 7-?-2-2-2, ee, tweea, with both double e’s strongly accented. It was all on one even tone, or nearly so, except at the very end where the pitch either dropped a little (suggesting the song of Sayornis phoebe), or rose still higher. I sat down on a wall near the invisible singer and waited. Again and again the song came from overhead; the bird was singing vir- tually in black night, shouting out a sharp song, which, in spite of its high, squeaky pitch, was in tune with that peaceful, shadowy hour before the morning twilight. Gradually dawn brightened the east; green spread over the dark gray meadow. I looked up and saw a kingbird, quietly perched on a branch above my head. A few days later Walter Faxon, after listening to the song, re- marked to me, “He is trying to pronounce the word ‘explicit,’ but he is making a miserable, stuttering failure of it.” Although heard oftenest in the morning before dawn, the song is occasionally given in the daytime. I have heard it several times on EASTERN KINGBIRD 25 misty summer afternoons—gray, almost colorless days—and once, August 12, 1909, at noon, under a blue sky. Dr. Leon Augustus Hausman (1925) has made a careful study of “The Utterances of the Kingbird” to which readers are referred. To quote from his summary : “The various cries and calls of the King- bird, as well as the flight song, are all built up from the simple call notes, which are best represented by the syllables Aitter and kit, and differ from one another in grouping, length and intensity. The flight song may be regarded as a true song, and is given only during the mating season. The mating song is seldom heard; is more musical in character than the flight song; possesses a definite song-rhythm and two new, true song-notes.” Albert R. Brand (1938), who has recorded on film the songs and calls of almost 100 species of birds, summarizes the results of his in- vestigation thus: “I believe that these studies are sufficiently compre- hensive to warrant the conclusion that passerine song averages above 4,000 vibrations per second or around the highest note of the piano keyboard.” He records the kingbird’s voice as 6,225 vibrations per second (approximate mean), very close in pitch to the song of the redstart (6,200). Field marks—The eastern kingbird is a large flycatcher with a broad white line across the tip of its black tail, two very inconspicuous wing bars, and no yellow in its plumage. Of the two flycatchers that resemble the eastern kingbird in general appearance, the gray kingbird and the Arkansas kingbird, the former has no white in its gray tail, and the latter has the tail margined with white and has a yellowish breast. Ralph Hoffmann (1904) says: “The black tail, broadly tipped with white, and the white under parts make the King. bird an easy bird to identify, even from a car window.” Enemies—The kingbird has few enemies. A hawk may occasion- ally catch him off guard, and once in a while a misguided apiarist or proprietor of a cranberry bog may turn against him. Formerly man was the bird’s deadly enemy. Both Wilson and Audubon deplored the wholesale slaughter of kingbirds in their day by farmers for fancied depredations on their bees. Nowadays, how- ever, the kingbird is protected as a song bird. Dr. Herbert Friedmann (1929) says that “the Kingbird is a very uncommon victim of the Cowbird, there being only a very few actual cases on record, although several writers have listed it, probably all based on the same published instances.” Fall.—Kingbirds keep mostly in family units until well into August; when migration time is near, these small groups coalesce and form flocks of a dozen birds or more. Now, nearly silent, they sit about on wires, fences, and trees, or in open country on the 26 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM ground, loosely associated, showing little tendency to move in unison, although individual birds take short flights from time to time. Occa- sionally, however, they become more active and restless. For example, on August 15, 1936, I saw a gathering of 15 or 20, flying about over a meadow just before sunset. They were not noisy but gave fre- quently a subdued 2-2-2-2-zee. Sometimes they flew out in groups of three or four, making swoops at each other; sometimes they perched for a moment, a few together, in the top of a tree, their feathers drawn in close, and their necks stretched out, posturing as cedar waxwings often do. In making long flights the wings were carried backward in full, free strokes—almost as far as a robin’s. When they flew thus, as they did most of the time, they moved through the air very rapidly and lost all resemblance to kingbirds. Occasionally they flew for short distances with the characteristic mincing fluttering. Fy P. A. Taverner and B. H. Swales (1907) describe an impressive flight at Point Pelee, Ontario, Canada. They say: “In 1907, when we arrived August 24, Kingbirds were very common and distributed all over the Point and the adjoining mainland. Each day brought more, until by the 27th there were a greater number of Kingbirds present than any of us had ever seen at one time before. Most of them were in the waste clearings near the end of the Point, where at times we saw flocks numbering hundreds of individuals. The dead trees scattered about the edges of these clearings were at all times more or less filled with them and it was no uncommon sight to see from fifteen to twenty in one small tree.” To quote again from A. F. Skutch’s notes: “The southward migra- tion of kingbirds passes through Central America during September and the first half of October. In 1930 I saw more kingbirds during the autumn at Tela, on the northern coast of Honduras, than I have seen in any other locality. Here I kept watch over a roost of king- birds during the southward migration. The site they selected as their sleeping place was a patch of tall elephant grass, higher than a man’s head and very dense, which already was the nightly shelter of myriads of small seed-eaters of four species, of the resident Lesson’s orioles and of the flocks of orchard orioles that had ar- rived somewhat earlier. It was a surprise to find the kingbirds, those creatures of high and open spaces, consorting in slumber with the humble seed-eaters, yet all got along most amicably together. The new arrivals were silent among all that chattering throng. At dusk I would see them hovering on beating wings, or moving slowly between the tall grass stalks, often circling and turning, more rarely making a short dart into the open space above, picking up a few final morsels before they settled down in sleep. Because of their EASTERN KINGBIRD Qe active habits and indifference to concealment, the kingbirds were, during their sojourn in the valley, one of the most conspicuous members of its avian community.” DISTRIBUTION Range—North and South America. Breeding range—The breeding range of the eastern kingbird ex- tends north to southern British Columbia (Courtenay, Westminster, and Swan Lake); central Alberta (Edmonton, Belvedere, and Lac la Biche) ; southern Saskatchewan (Wiseton and Quill Lake) ; central Manitoba (Chimawawin and Grand River) ; southern Ontario (Gar- gantua, Cobalt, and Ottawa); southern Quebec (Montreal, Quebec, and Kamouraska); New Brunswick (Chatham); Prince Edward Island (Tignish) ; and the Magdalen Islands. The eastern limits of the range reach the Atlantic coast from the Magdalen Islands, Quebec, south to southern Florida (Royal Palm Hammock). To the south, the Gulf coast is reached from Florida (Royal Palm Hammock, St. Petersburg, and Pensacola) ; west to Texas (Houston and Refugio), thence in the interior to northern New Mexico (Ribera and Santa Cruz); northern Utah (Salt Lake County); and Oregon (Malheur Lake, Burns, and Wasco). West to western Oregon (Wasco and Maupin) ; western Washington (Nesqually Plains, Seattle, Dungeness, and Bellingham) ; and southwestern British Columbia (Courtenay). During the summer season kingbirds also have been recorded at many points well outside their normal breeding range, as in the north to central British Columbia (Hazelton); Mackenzie (Fort Simpson, Fort Resolution, and Fort Rae); and Labrador (Cape Mokkovik and Killinik Island). There are a number of summer records for California, and the species has also been recorded at this season in Arizona (Kayenta) and Nevada (Alamo, Lovelock, and Big Creek Ranch). Winter range—The winter range extends north to Costa Rica (Villa Quesada and Volcan de Trazu); eastern Panama (Gatun) ; northern Colombia (Trojas de Catoca and Bonda); and British Guiana (Abary River and Blairmount). From the latter region the range extends southward, probably through western Brazil, to Bolivia (Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Caiza). South to southern Bolivia (Caiza); and Peru (Lima). West to Peru (Lima); Ecuador (Zamora and Gualea); and Costa Rica (Villa Quesada). Spring migration.—Early dates of arrival in the United States are: Florida—Basinger, March 14; Kissimmee, March 20. Georgia— Beachton, March 25. South Carolina—Mount Pleasant, March 25. North Carolina—Raleigh, April 18. Virginia—Variety Mills, April 17. District of Columbia—Washington, April 18. New Jersey— Caldwell, April 28. New York—Ballston Spa, May 1. Connecticut 28 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM —Hadlyme, April 26. Massachusetts—Boston, April 30. Vermont— St. Johnsbury, May 5. New Hampshire—Hanover, May 3. Maine— Presque Isle, May 5. Quebec—Sherbrooke, May 15. New Bruns- wick—Chatham, May 12. Nova Scotia—Pictou, May 16. Prince Edward Island—May 19. Louisiana—New Orleans, March 19. Tennessee—Sewee, April 17. Kentucky—Eubank, April 12. Mis- souri—St. Louis, April 15. Llinois—Odin, April 16. Indiana— Brookville, April 18. Ohio—Oberlin, April 22. Michigan—Peters- burg, April 23. Ontario—Ottawa, May 3. Iowa—Keokuk, April 23. Wisconsin—Milwaukee, April 20. Minnesota—Lanesboro, April 24. Manitoba—Aweme, May 10. Texas—Kerrville, April 22. Kansas— Onaga, April 19. Nebraska—Syracuse, April 25. South Dakota— Rapid City, May 8. North Dakota—Larimore, May 10. Saskatch- ewan—Indian Head, May 14. Colorado—Denver, May 7. Wyo- ming—Cheyenne, May 9. Montana—Terry, May 138. Alberta— Edmonton, May 21. British Columbia—Edgewood, April 24. Fall migration.—Late dates of fall departure are: British Co- lumbia—Okanagan Landing, September 13. Montana—Columbia Falls, September 11. Wyoming—Yellowstone Park, September 30. Colorado—Fort Morgan, September 15. Saskatchewan—FEastend, September 9. North Dakota—Fargo, September 18. South Dakota— Rapid City, September 24. Nebraska—Lincoln, September 22. Kansas—Clearwater, October 8. Oklahoma—Copan, September 23. Texas—Brownsville, October 1. Minnesota—St. Paul, September 23. Iowa—Des Moines, September 30. Ontario—Toronto, September 24. Michigan—Blaney, September 27. Ohio—Wauseon, September 28. Illinois—Chicago, September 25. Missouri—Columbia, September 23. Kentucky—Danville, September 29. Mississippi—Biloxi, October 20. Prince Edward Island—September 4. New Brunswick—Scotch Lake, September 16. Maine—Portland, September 12. New Hampshire— Durham, September 11. Massachusetts—Hudson, September 20. New Jersey—Milltown, September 17. District of Columbia—Wash- ington, September 23. North Carolina—Raleigh, September 18. South Carolina—Charleston, October 9. Georgia—Atlanta, September 19. Florida—Pensacola, October 6; Orlando, October 12. Casual records.—Aside from the summer occurrences immediately north of the regular breeding grounds, there are not many cases where this species has been detected outside of its normal range. It was observed along the Humber River, Newfoundland, during the summer of 1911, and ultimately it may be found to breed on that island. The kingbird has been credited also to Greenland, but the evidence upon which the record was based is not now known. On June 17, 1931, an adult female was captured by an Eskimo at Point Barrow, Alaska. GRAY KINGBIRD 29 Egg dates—British Columbia: 10 records, July 6 to July 7. Colorado: 13 records, June 7 to 25. Florida: 5 records, May 3 to June 11. Illinois: 20 records, May 2 to July 27; 10 records, June 11 to 21, indicating the height of the season. Massachusetts: 34 records, May 30 to June 30; 18 records, June 5 to 20. Ontario: 19 records, May 30 to July 21; 10 records, June 12 to 25. Pennsylvania: 21 records, May 23 to July 14; 11 records, June 1to 11. TYRANNUS DOMINICENSIS DOMINICENSIS (Gmelin) GRAY KINGBIRD PLATE 5 HABITS CONTRIBUTED BY ALEXANDER SPRUNT, JR. Every field ornithologist can call to mind certain observations that stand out indelibly in memory, not so much because of the rarity of the species involved but because of the general combination of circumstances surrounding it. Indeed, such a recollection might deal with a locally abundant bird, or one that the observer has seen many, many times, but the particular situation and conditions are such as to frame it permanently in memory. I have such a one in mind in connection with the gray kingbird. In company with a northern ornithologist, I was, one May after- noon, at the Pan American Airport in Coconut Grove, Miami, Fla., watching one of the great “clippers” being hauled up the ramp by a puffing little tractor. The ship was placed on level ground and the tractor departed elsewhere. As we stood there, marveling at the intricate fabric before us, a quick shadow fell across us and a small gray bird swept overhead, chattered once or twice, and came to rest on the tail fin of the plane. My companion promptly lost in- terest in the latter and with an exclamation, focused a pair of glasses on the newcomer and stared at it intently. It was the first gray kingbird ever seen through those glasses; a new bird for the “life list,” another of many “hoped for” species on that trip. It is always a satisfaction to show a companion a new bird, and I enjoyed it from that angle, but there was something else about that sight that was tremendously appealing and eminently fitting. That trim gray bird sitting there on the huge gray plane inevitably started a train of thought. Two travelers of the sky they were; the one a tiny, fragile mechanism of flesh, bone, and feather, mar- velously efficient and imbued with life. The other a gigantic com- 30 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM bination of metal, wood, glass, and rubber; man-conceived, man- made, man-governed, but now silent, inert, lifeless. Without a guiding brain it could never be anything else than that. Both were birds of the air, but the one created by an alchemy beyond the ken of even the master minds that built the other. Both had just recently come from the Tropics to land upon Florida’s shore; one of them silently, surely, guided by something of unerring accuracy, which shaped its living course without chart or compass; the other, boring northward with four great motors roaring steadily, its sharp hull cleaving the upper air lke some fabulous juggernaut. And now, both had reached the goal and the tiny one rested upon its huge imitator, to give a glimpse in com- parison to two bird students, and in the memory of one of them, at least, that brief tableau will remain forever etched. Spring—There is a rather irregular and varied series of dates for the spring arrival of the gray kingbird in Florida. Arthur H. Howell (1932) states that Atkins mentions it as arriving at Key West on April 11. This checks closely with what observations I have been able to gather in that area. Edward M. Moore, the Audubon Society’s representative in Key West, was instructed to pay particular attention to this, and in 1938 the bird was first seen on April 12. In 1939 it appeared on April 10. And yet it has been reported in Fort Lauderdale on March 25, 1918; New Smyrna, April 3, 1924; and Chokoloskee, April 5, 1928 (Howell). The earliest record for the spring eal was at the Dry Tortugas, March 16, 1923, and Scott took two birds there on March 23, 1890 (Howell). It is my experience that the bird can be seen anywhere in the Florida Keys after April 15, but anyone visiting south Florida prior to April 10 might well be disappointed in not seeing it. In extreme northwestern Florida Francis M. Weston says that “the gray King- bird is a late migrant into the Pensacola region, the westernmost limit of its range, and the earliest arrival dates in my journal are April 26, 1985, and April 27, 1936.” In South Carolina the few occasions of its arrival have been early in May. Nests with one and two eggs were secured on May 28 and 30, which means that the birds probably arrived early that month. On May 17, 1927, Arthur T. Wayne and I saw a gray kingbird on Oakland Plantation, Charleston County, only a few hundred yards from Mr. Wayne’s house. The bird was perched on a plow handle standing in a field. Mr. Wayne was sure that it had a mate and was settled for the summer, so we did not take it. Search of the vicinity, however, failed to reveal another, and nothing more was seen of the bird. Wayne (1927) recorded the observation and ends his note with this comment: “This makes the fifth gray kingbird I have GRAY KINGBIRD ou seen in South Carolina since 1885. * * * These birds have longer wings, culmen and middle toe than specimens from the Bahamas, Florida, Greater Antilles and Caribbean Sea showing that the birds that breed on the coast of South Carolina have a much longer distance to travel and hence possess longer wings.” Since Georgia intervenes between South Carolina and Florida, one would expect rather more instances of the occurrence of domini- censis there than in South Carolina, but in reality they are about the same, though not so well known. Indeed, present-day workers in Georgia ornithology seem under the impression that there are fewer records than actually exist! For instance, Ivan R. Tomkins, of Savannah, says (1934) that “Rossignol [Gilbert H.] who is thor- oughly familiar with the species in its normal range, saw and heard a single bird near Quarantine Station June 8, 1933. Quarantine is near the river mouth [Savannah] fourteen miles east of the city. [The Savannah River is the South Carolina—Georgia line.] There are no other Georgia records.” Mr. Tomkins was in error in making this last statement, and it seems important to clear the record. There were two records previous to Rossignol’s, and two have appeared since, making a total of five. Of these, two are nesting records, which will be mentioned under the heading “Nesting,” while the others consist of a specimen taken by Arnow at St. Marys, on August 1, 1905, and recorded by Troup D. Perry (1911), and a sight record by Hoxie, which was reported by Fargo (1934, p. 190). These South Carolina-Georgia records con- stitute all that is known of the spring movements of the gray king- bird outside of Florida. Extralimital records of fall occurrence will be discussed later. Courtship.—There seems little to add to Audubon’s account (1840) on this phase of the gray kingbird’s history. He puts it so well and covers the ground so accurately that observations of others since have only been corroboration of it. He says: “During the love sea- son, the male and the female are seen rising from a dry twig together, either perpendicularly, or in a spiral manner, crossing each other as they ascend, twittering loudly, and conducting themselves in a manner much resembling that of the Tyrant Flycatcher.” Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1905) quote Richard Hill, of Spanish Town, Jamaica, as saying practically the same thing as Audubon, but more recent observers are reticent, probably because there is nothing much to add. I have noted no variation of the above proceedings in my observations of the mating flight except that on a few occasions there was some pronounced snapping of the bill as the birds ascended in the spiral manner. The courtship is usually performed in open situations and is therefore conspicuous. 32 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Nesting.—There is little time between the arrival of this species from the Tropics and the commencement of its domestic duties. This fact is quite apparent to any one familiar with the bird, and I quote pertinent notes sent me by Francis M. Weston, of Pensacola, Fla.: “The gray kingbird apparently starts nesting almost as soon as it arrives. In 1932, a completed nest was found on May 15, only a few days after the normal date of arrival, and the first egg was laid on May 29. This was destined to be an unusual nest for by June 2 it con- tained four eggs instead of the almost universal three. Another early nesting, in 1933, resulted in the young birds being on the wing by June 21, which means, if we assume that periods of incubation and nest life are the same as for the eastern kingbird, that the first of three eggs was laid not later than May 29. Occupied nests can be found from early in June until early in August, though the late nests may be the result of repeated attempts to raise a single brood rather than true second nestings.” During the breeding season, as at other times except migration, this species is essentially a seaside lover. It displays little fear of man, and the nest may be approached closely, with the bird remaining either on it or in the immediate vicinity. One nest that I examined on Pavilion Key, amid the Ten Thousand Islands, Fla., was very jealously guarded, and the birds remained in close proximity during the time it was being photographed. This strictly littoral habit seems general throughout its range, and at the western extremity (Pensacola, Fla.) F. M. Weston (MS.) has described it as follows: ‘During the breeding season it is confined almost exclusively to the dense jungle of saw palmetto, vines, scrubby live oak, and stunted magnolia that clothe the landward side of the high range of sand dunes that front the Gulf beach on this part of the coast. The only departure from this habit that has come to my attention was the location of a pair for three consecutive summers among the trees and gardens of the officers’ quarters at the Naval Air Station, still on the waterfront but more than a mile from the outer beach.” Of the only two nesting sites of this species recorded from South Carolina, one was in the city of Charleston itself, and since the latter occupies a peninsula, salt water is nowhere far off. As it happens, this urban site was about midway between the two rivers bounding the strip of land that the city occupies, about three-quarters of a mile from either. The nest itself must strike anyone who has seen it as decidedly unsubstantial. The term “flimsy” has been employed by both A. H. Howell and F. M. Weston in describing it. All the nests seen by me have been of that character, and in several the contours of the eggs were visible from beneath, through the nest material. Thus, it differs materially from the nest of the eastern kingbird, which is dis- GRAY KINGBIRD 33 tinctly well made, compact, and bulky. Rather coarse twigs form the foundation of the nest, and the lining may be of various grasses, sometimes salt-marsh grass if near a locality where this plant 1s found. As to the choice of a nesting tree, the mangrove, usually the red mangrove (Rhiziphora mangle), is almost invariably chosen through- out the bird’s range in Florida. Where the species penetrates and this tree does not, an oak is usually taken, the stiff twigs of which form excellent support for the frail nest. The mangrove occurs as far up the east coast of Florida as New Smyrna and Daytona, and it is here that one usually encounters the first gray kingbirds on the way south. On my frequent trips to Florida, I never think about watch- ing the wires along the road for this species until I reach Daytona, and the birds are fairly common in that town itself. Low altitudes are to be expected in view of the favored growths. While the mangrove reaches considerable height along the southwest coast of Florida, the birds seem consistently to prefer the normal types and build no higher than 10 to 12 feet from the ground or, as is often the case, over the water. Many nests are no more than 3 or 4 feet up. Variations will, of course, occur. The two greatest recorded elevations I can discover are those of a nest seen by Dr. Wetmore (Wetmore and Swales, 1931) near Constanza, Haiti, which was 40 feet from the ground on the limb of a lofty pine. The other was a nest found by J. H. Riley (1905) on Abaco Island, Bahamas, which was “about 50 feet high in a pine.” Strong attachment is exhibited by the gray kingbird for a nesting site. Weston has noted that “apparently a pair of birds returns to the same tree or the same clump of trees year after year, for several nests in progressive stages of decay are usually found within an area of a few square yards.” In the account of a nesting many years ago in South Carolina, Dr. John Bachman stated that the birds returned year after year to the same clump of trees in Charleston to build. In his full notes on this species, Weston (MS.) mentions another possible habit as follows: “Egg destruction may be imputed against this species from a single circumstantial instance noted on July 25, 1928. A nest containing three eggs was found on July 9. As it turned out later, another pair of birds had built less than 30 feet away on the far side of asmall dune. On July 25, the known nest was found to have been deserted and all three eggs had been punctured as by the beak of a bird, while in the second nest (just then discovered) were well-grown young birds. The inference is that the established pair had destroyed the eggs of the intruders.” The only authentic nesting records of the gray kingbird outside of Florida have been for South Carolina and Georgia. So far as South Carolina is concerned, the known nesting dates are many years apart, 34 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM but close together geographically. Since I have a “home town” pride in them, plus the fact that they are ornithological history, they are quoted herewith in full, and they constitute the most northerly nesting of dominicensis. Audubon (1840) records the first instance, though he himself did not observe the birds or the nest. He writes: After I had arrived at Charleston in South Carolina, on returning from my expedition to the Floridas, a son of Paul Lee, Esq., a friend of the Rev. John Bachman, called upon us, asserting that he had observed a pair of Flycatchers in the College [Charleston] yard, differing from all others with which he was acquainted. We listened, but paid little regard to the information, and deferred our visit to the trees in the College yard. A week after, young Lee returned to the charge, urging us to go to the place, and see both the birds and the nest. To please this amiable youth, Mr. Bachman and I soon reached the spot; but before we arrived the nest had been destroyed by some boys. The birds were not to be seen, but a common King Bird happening to fly over us, we jeered our young observer, and returned home. Soon after the Flycatchers formed another nest, in which they reared a brood, when young Lee gave intimation to Mr. Bachman, who, on visiting the place, recognised them as of the species described in this article. Of this I was apprised by letter after I had left Charleston. * * * The circumstance enforced upon me the propriety of never suffering an opportunity of acquiring knowledge to pass, and of never imagining for a moment that another may not know something that has escaped your attention. Since that time, three years have elapsed. The birds have regularly returned every Spring to the College yard, and have there reared, in peace, two broods each season, having been admired and respected by the collegians, after they were apprised that the species had not previously been found in the State. Young Paul Lee deserves more credit than he ever received, for had it not been for his persistent visits to Dr. Bachman the knowledge might well never have gone farther than his own conviction that he had seen something unusual. The College of Charleston occupies a city block bounded by St. Philip, George, Green, and College Streets. There are many very large oaks in the “yard,” and the nests must necessarily have been at considerably greater altitudes than those usually utilized by this species. This illustrates the tendency of the gray kingbird to return to the same tree “or clump of trees,” as Weston points out. Since Bachman’s day, no further instance of the nesting has occurred there; at least none has been noted. Many years elapsed before the gray kingbird was seen again in coastal South Carolina, this time by William Brewster and Arthur T. Wayne. Wayne (1910) prefaces his account of this record as fol- lows: “Since Audubon wrote, I have been the next observer who has seen and taken this rare species in the State.” It so happens that Wayne was in error here, though the record previous to his and Mr. Brewster’s was not made known publicly until many years afterward. Herbert Ravenel Sass, of Charleston, who was once connected with the newspaper business, and who conducted a nature column in the GRAY KINGBIRD aD “News and Courier,” wrote, under date of March 17, 1921, that “Mr. W. B. Gadsden of Summerville [S. C.] supplies the inter- esting information that his father, the late Prof. John Gadsden, obtained one of these birds [Gray Kingbird] on the grounds of Porter Military Academy in Charleston, somewhere between 1881 and 1885. Mr. Gadsden says that his father was struck by the unusual appear- ance of some birds in the Porter elms, and shot one of them with a small rifle. He then took the bird to the College of Charleston Museum [now the Charleston Museum] where it was definitely identified as the Gray Kingbird.” Unfortunately, the exact date cannot be ascertained now, nor can the supposition that this was another city nesting record be sub- stantiated. However, this information fills a gap between the Lee- Audubon-Bachman instance and the Brewster-Wayne record, though much closer to the latter in date. As far as cities are concerned, Charleston certainly seems more in the limelight in regard to the gray kingbird than any other in the country! The remaining nesting records of South Carolina occurred on Sul- livans Island, which was made famous by the Battle of Fort Moultrie in the Revolution and which lies just across the harbor from the City of Charleston. The first of these is described by Arthur T. Wayne (1894) : In the early part of May, 1885, Mr. William Brewster and myself saw a pair of Gray Kingbirds at Fort Moultrie, Sullivan’s Island, 8. C. I determined to secure these birds with their nest and eggs, and after several visits to the Island I located their range, and on May 28, I found their nest which contained one egg and shot the female bird. The nest was built in a silver-leaf poplar, in a gentleman’s yard [Maj. W. J. Gayer] only a few feet from his dwelling house. The nest, as I remember it, was very frail. As might be supposed by anyone who knew Mr. Wayne, this dis- covery fired him with intense enthusiasm, and he had the species in mind every spring. He was always greatly attracted to the barrier islands of the coast and visited them monthly throughout the year with one bird or another in view. He ever connected Sullivans Island with the gray kingbird, but it was not until 1893 that he was again successful in finding the species there. His graphic account (1894) of that experience follows: On May 30 of this year [18931], I determined to search Sullivan’s Island care- fully for this rare visitor, and accordingly I arrived there early in the morning of the above date. After walking the entire length of the Island near the front beach [about 5 miles], and having failed to discover this species, I leisurely searched the back beach. At twelve o’clock—mid-day—a bird I saw flying about three hundred yards away I took to be this species. I followed the direction of its flight until it was lost to view—over half a mile away. I at once hastened to the spot, and to my delight found a veritable Gray Kingbird perched on the top of a flag pole about fifty feet high in a private yard. The law on the Island 36 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM forbids shooting, under penalty of $10.00 fine. My only chance was for the bird to light on the Government property—Fort Moultrie grounds—six yards away, where I could not be molested. I did not have long to wait before the male which was perched on the flag pole flew into the Government lands where I at once shot it. Upon my shooting the bird its mate flew directly over me, and I soon had it stowed carefully away in my collecting basket. The nest which was found in the private yard, close to the flag pole, was built in the top of a small live oak tree about twenty feet high. It is a very frail structure, and is composed of sticks, jesamine vines, and lined apparently with oleander rootlets. One article in its composition which is quite curious is a long piece of fishing cord. The nest contained two eggs, and upon dissecting the female I found one more egg which would have been laid the following day. It will be seen that all the speci- mens of the Gray Kingbird which have been actually taken in South Carolina were from this famous Island—a favorite summer resort for the people of Charleston. As noted above, Mr. Wayne was in error in this last statement, for the specimen seen by Professor Gadsden in the grounds of the Porter Military Academy, between 1881 and 1885, was taken. Indeed, par- ticular significance attaches to the P. M. A. specimen, for, since it was not stated by Audubon that Bachman took any of the College of Charleston campus birds, Prof. Gadsden’s specimen was the first one secured in South Carolina. The species has not been observed, or at least there is no record of it, since the May 1927 bird seen by Mr. Wayne and myself. The history of the gray kingbird in Georgia is similar. One speci- men has been taken, two have been seen, and there are two definite nest- ing records. The first instance is that of a specimen secured by Isaac Arnow at St. Marys (near the Florida line) on August 1, 1905, and recorded by T. D. Perry (1911). Sight records made by Walter Hoxie on the Savannah River (South Carolina State line) are vague and without dates. The other was an observation of Gilbert R. Rossignol, at the Quarantine Station, mouth of the Savannah River, June 8, 1933, this having been already mentioned here. The two sight records, viz., those of Hoxie and Rossignol, were within an ace of being South Caro- lina records, as well as Georgia observations. H. B. Bailey (1883) gives some notes on the nesting in Georgia but mentions only one instance specifically. This concerns a set of eggs collected by Dr. S. W. Wilson, “between the years 1853 and 1865.” That more than one breeding record was concerned is evidenced by his state- ment that the gray kingbird nests “chiefly on St. Simon’s Island and in Wayne and McIntosh Counties.” This leaves a good deal to be desired in the way of precise information, but one can be certain of the nest found by Dr. Wilson if nothing else. Probably the other records will always be shrouded in obscurity, which is unfortunate. Mr. Bailey states that the species “nests on the horizontal branches of oak trees, near the top, and loosely constructed of twigs ‘with little or no lining’; eggs always three.” The most recent instance of the breeding GRAY KINGBIRD 37 of this species in Georgia was the discovery of a nest and three eggs on July 3, 1938, by Don Eyles and Ivan R. Tomkins, on the grounds of the Quarantine Station, at the mouth of the Savannah River. It is recorded by Eyles (1938). He was under the impression that there were no former records of the nesting of this species in the State, for he states this in his account. He was also either unaware of or ignores the Hoxie sight records. The young of the above nest suc- cessfully hatched, and photographs of them were taken. The Quar- antine Station is on Cockspur Island and virtually on the South Carolina line. Eggs—|Avtuor’s note: The gray kingbird lays usually three or four, perhaps rarely five, very handsome eggs. They vary from ovate to elliptical-ovate, less often elongate-ovate, and they are only slightly glossy. The ground color varies from “seashell pink” to pale “salmon-buff.” The eggs are irregularly but rather profusely spotted and blotched with dark, rich browns, “chocolate,” “burnt umber,” “claret brown” or “cinnamon-brown,” and with shades of “Quaker drab,” “brownish drab,” or “lavender.” ‘The measurements of 50 eggs average 25.1 by 18.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 27.5 by 18.8, 25.7 by 19.4, 22.6 by 17.5, and 22.9 by 17.0 millimeters. | Plumages.—| Autuor’s note: In four nestlings that I have ex- amined, the natal down still adheres to the growing juvenal plumage; the down varies in color from “cream-buff” to “cartridge buff”; the crown is “hair brown,” and the back is “deep brownish drab”; the wing coverts are tipped with “cinnamon”; and the under parts are white, tinged with buff on the sides and flanks. Ridgway (1907) describes the young, in full juvenal plumage, as “essentially like adults, but without orange on crown; gray of upper parts browner; upper tail-coverts broadly margined with rusty brown or chestnut, rectrices edged and terminally margined with cinnamon, lesser wing-coverts margined with cinnamon or cinnamon-buff, and other paler wing-markings more or less tinged with cinnamon.” I have seen birds in this juvenal plumage as late as October 22, which would indicate that the postjuvenal molt is prolonged through the winter, with perhaps a partial body molt after the birds have migrated, and a molt of the wings and tail later in the winter, when the attenuated three or four outer primaries are acquired. I have seen one young male, taken February 21, that was molting its tail and in which the wings were much worn; it also had very little yellow in the crown. By the time the young birds come north they have probably acquired a plumage that is nearly or quite adult. Adults apparently molt mainly while they are in their winter quarters, and we have not enough winter specimens to determine just 324726—42__-4 38 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM how or when this is done. Probably there is a postnuptial molt of the body plumage late in fall and a molt of the flight feathers late in winter. I have seen an adult female, taken March 20, that was molting about the throat and apparently molting the tail, the wings apparently having been renewed. | Food.—With a species as restricted in range in this country as the gray kingbird is, one cannot find a great deal in regard to the specific character of its food. Most of the information available relates to the range in the Tropics. However, being what it is, a typical fly- catcher, the general nature of the diet is obvious. It is inevitable that insects predominate, but exact information is limited. As I have had no experience in the stomach analysis and have not collected the species, I depend entirely upon the findings of others. Arthur H. Howell (1932) gives results on two stomachs only. One “from St. George Island contained only insect remains, of which Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, etc.) composed 61 percent, a large wood- boring beetle 31 percent, and bugs 5 percent.” Another was “a speci- men taken at Cape Sable” which had eaten “3 large dragon flies, 1 bee, and 10 berries of the gumbo-limbo, or West Indian birch (Llaphrium simaruba).” The berry-eating habit seems to be characteristic, as it has been noted in other parts of the range, foreign as well as domestic. Rela- tive to the former, Richard Hill, of Spanish Town, Jamaica, is quoted in Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1905) as saying that the gray kingbird eats “wild sweet berries, especially those of the pimento.” South Florida is replete with many tropical plants, and since the gray kingbird is so abundant in that part of the State it is natural that its berry-eating propensities would include several species un- known in other parts of the country. The gumbo-limbo, mentioned by Howell, is a very characteristic tree of extreme southern Florida, a remarkable growth in many respects, commonly found in nearly every “hammock” and a favorite tree of the beautiful Ziguwus, or arboreal snail. The soapberry (Sapindus saponaria) is also very common, particularly about the Sable Capes, where I have found it in several hammocks. Though not specifically mentioned in the food of the gray kingbird, its great bunches of berries could hardly fail to attract this species, and examination of stomachs in that locality might well reveal evidences of this growth. Wetmore (1916) states that berries of the royal palm (Roystonea borinquena) are freely eaten in Puerto Rico, and since this magnificent tree is still found in isolated spots in south Florida, it undoubtedly figures in the diet of the species also. In cultivated districts the positively beneficial results of the gray kingbird’s food habits are illustrated by the reputation imparted to it in the Virgin Islands, where it destroys cotton pests. Charles E. GRAY KINGBIRD 39 Wilson (1923) states that these birds “eat large numbers of the larvae and adults and are of great value in controlling the cotton-worm” (Alabama argillacea), which is the second most important pest of cotton in the Islands. In that locality it also feeds on the fall army- worm (Laphygma fragiperda), southern green stink bug (Wezara viridula), and bollworm (feliothis obsoleta). All these are injurious to cotton. Junius Henderson (1927) gives a table listing as complete a sum- mary of the gray kingbird’s food as I have found. It is an ac- count of an analysis of 89 stomachs studied by Dr. Alexander Wet- more (1916) in Puerto Rico. A digest of the full information given by Dr. Wetmore follows: Vegetable matter comprised some 22.44 percent and animal matter 77.60 percent. Of the former, the items are broken down as follows: Seeds and fruits comprise 22.06 percent, while vegetable rubbish amounts to only 0.38 percent. The berries borne by the royal palm (Roystonea borinquena) and other species of the same family are favorites, as are those of the espino (Xanthorylum spp.), a fruit with little pulp and a peculiarly reticulated seed. Seeds of various euphorbias and of plants of the nightshade family are also sought greedily, and one third had eatea seeds of the Santa Maria (Lantana sp.), a pernicious weed not of major importance in Puerto Rico though very troublesome under similar conditions in Hawaii. The moral (Cordia spp.) was perhaps the favorite, being found in 12 stomachs. The fruits eaten were all wild and none are of commercial importance. The animal matter (77.56 percent) is listed as follows: Percent Percent IVOLG We CRICK Et guar ab oe Sa PASE || OO) (210) O11 eee os AS See 1.38 Other yOrthopteras—--=-= 5. 0. 95 | Honeybees (workers) —~-----_-__- 2: 21 DEST Wil a een cae eee 4 ote, PECeS, “MOSULly, Wild! 22 — ==) = 15. 28 Homoptera (largely cicadas)--_ 1.97] Other Hymenoptera (mostly Stinks S eet cee ee Jee, WASDS) seers. oat LARSS Opera bugs: See Ae eee et es 0.68 | Moths and caterpillars_________- 4. 75 Cane-rooti weevils_a. = — ne 17.19 | Miscellaneous invertebrates_____ 2. 42 Stalk-boring weevils____________ HASO al Zards = see eels te te Ee 3. 64 Miscellaneous weevils______-___-_ 1. 34 Richard Hill, of Spanish Town, Jamaica, already quoted in regard to the berry-eating habit, imparts a rather remarkable predaceous practice of the gray kingbird in “seizing hummingbirds, as they hover over blossoms * * * killing the prey by repeated blows struck on a branch and then devouring them.” Strange tactics for a flycatcher certainly, and probably confined to the tropical portion of its range. It will be recalled that some of the goatsuckers include small birds in their diet, whether intentionally or not being yet somewhat obscure, but such action on the part of the gray kingbird appears to be an utterly deliberate and unique habit. The case of egg destruction implied by F. M. Weston cannot be laid to dietary 40 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM motive, but rather to punitive measures taken by a bird whose territory was invaded by another of the same species. Wetmore (1916) sums up the food habits as far as Puerto Rico is concerned thus: “Detailed study of the food of the gray kingbird shows it to be beneficial almost without exception. A few honeybees are eaten, but they are more than made up for by the large bulk of injurious weevils, mole crickets, and Hemiptera destroyed. Though not so great an enemy of the changa (Scapteriscus didactylus) as has been commonly believed, it accomplishes practically as much good in consuming cane root- and stalk-boring weevils and coffee leaf- weevils.” Though it is unfortunate that more is not known about the diet of this species in its United States range, there is no reason to believe that its beneficial tendencies in the Tropics do not extend to Florida and elsewhere in this country. It is often common about citrus groves and must perform distinct service in reducing the insect pests in such places, as well as about cultivated fields of vegetables. The swarming insect life of Florida must offer unlimited food in such line, and anyone who has had to work afield in many parts of the gray kingbird’s range in that State will have wished for more reducing agencies to curb the incredible abundance of these creatures. The species should be encouraged in every possible way. Behavior.—There is nothing really outstanding in the behavior of the gray kingbird differing from that of the other Tyrannidae; it is very characteristically a kingbird! It is fond of an exposed perch in order that detection and pursuit of insect prey can be accom- plished with despatch. Any sort of perch may be utilized, but wherever telephone wires are available these are preferred to anything else. One of the best localities for observation in the whole of the bird’s range is the Florida Keys—certainly a very appropriate place, for here it was made known to science by Audubon. Coming in by Indian Key, he probably saw his first ones on the Matecumbes, or perhaps Lignum-vitae Key. ‘Today the visitor there can see them as easily as he did, and under similar conditions, for the species is very abundant there, perhaps more so than any part of the State. Driving along the Overseas Highway (Florida 4-A), one encounters long stretches where the wires are close to the road, and at times gray kingbirds seem to be everywhere. Of course, numbers vary, and on some days fewer are seen than on others. I have made 16 trips over this highway, from the mainland to Key West, and in some parts of it have counted as many as five individuals in 10 miles, or one every 2 miles. They may be even commoner that this, or much scarcer. The characteristic contour of the bird can be recog- GRAY KINGBIRD 41 nized at considerable distances, and the dashing manner of the feed- ing habits is quite spectacular. Forays after insects are carried out with much verve and considerable speed. As mentioned previously, they are essentially a littoral species, and in the Keys one is never far from water. Thus, one is impressed by the kingbird population in that locality, and even some of the smallest of the keys in the Bay of Florida have their quota of the birds. In the habit of tolerating no intrusion upon its domain or territory, this kingbird is like others of the family. It does not hesitate to attack any other bird and sometimes mammals. In the Keys, the two species more often assailed seem to be the turkey vulture and the insular red-shouldered hawk. I have frequently seen both these birds of prey dodging and twisting about in the air with a tiny, dancing speck above, and upon them, which resolves itself into a gray kingbird. Herons are sometimes attacked, even the majestic great white, and the contrast exhibited under such conditions is hardly more spectacular than ludicrous. John R. Williams (1935) gives an instance of the eastern king- bird (7. tyrannus) attacking an airplane. I do considerable flying in the Florida Keys and have often wondered whether dominicensis would make such an attack, but as yet no case has been noted. As Mr. Williams points out, “A case of this sort could scarcely have oc- curred except where a slow, low-flying plane was involved.” While the planes used by me are not particularly slow, they are certainly often low-flying, as one of the primary objects of these flights is to check numbers and nests of the great white heron, and often altitudes of under 100 feet, and sometimes much less than that, are flown. It would not surprise me should such an encounter take place, and indeed, it may well have already occurred and escaped notice. I have never observed the gray kingbird eating berries so can- not describe it, though it is unlikely that there is anything unusual about the habit. I do recall seeing one of these birds near Cuthbert Lake one day (Cape Sable area), hovering in a rather peculiar man- ner about the outer branches of a large gumbo-limbo tree and moving rather jerkily about. At the time I thought it was catching insects, but it might have been picking berries. Probably this action is usually indulged in, however, while the bird is perched, and not on the wing. Insect prey is often taken close to the surface of water and also actually from it. In open situations the bird will make long swoops from a mangrove, snap up the prey a foot or so above the water, describe a curve, and swing back to the perch. Or, if necessary, it will hover momentarily, pick up the insect from the surface, and 42 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM return. In more restricted quarters, the tactics vary. In the canal, for instance, which parallels the highway on Key Largo from the Card-Barnes Sound Bridge, I have watched kingbirds virtually dive from a mangrove perch to the water. The recovery and ascent ap- pear very loosely accomplished, as if the wings were almost com- pletely pivoted. This must be what Richard Hill noted in Jamaica and so aptly described as having the “appearance of tumbling, and, in rising again, ascends with a singular motion of the wings, as if hurled into the air and endeavoring to recover itself.” Though most of the kingbirds flutter their wings rather rapidly in flight, this species seems to exhibit the habit to a greater extent, the vibrations being very noticeable. The tameness of the gray kingbird is marked. It allows close ap- proach and appears indifferent to observers, though excitable enough when the nest area is invaded. It is very noisy then and indulges the habit of snapping the beak. Some pairs of birds are more truculent than others and defend the nest strenuously, even against human beings. Without actuai contact being made, one sometimes dodges invol- untarily as the excited, chattering birds swoop and dive about one’s head. J.H. Riley (1905) speaks of a nest found on Eleuthera Island, Bahamas, where the owner or owners darted almost into his face as he was investigating it. I had a somewhat similar experience with a nesting pair on Pavilion Key in the Ten Thousand Islands of Florida. While the gray kingbird frequents the remotest wilderness areas, such as the Cape Sable district of south Florida, it occurs freely about cities and towns as well. It seems to make no difference whether absolutely primeval conditions prevail or the roar of city traffic resounds on all sides. I have watched the bird from a Miami hotel window as easily as I have studied it among the mangroves of Cuthbert Lake. Many of the east and west coast Florida towns have sizeable populations of the species, and it abounds in Key West. This inclination makes it easy to know, and the observer who visits its range will have no difficulty whatever in finding and studying the bird at will. Voice-——The gray kingbird is a noisy species. Its voice is certainly one of its outstanding characteristics and draws mention by all who have written about it. Most of these observers are in universal agreement and unite in voting it vociferous. The eastern kingbird too is a noisy creature, but it is outdone by its larger southern cousin. As C. J. Maynard (1896) has expressed it, “The northern species are noisy birds but in this respect they are excelled by the Gray King Birds which are constantly chatter- ing.” While not literally true, this statement covers the ground GRAY KINGBIRD 43 very well. Perhaps it would be a little more accurate to say that the gray kingbird is seldom quiet! Whether the bird is sitting on the watch for prey or actually engaging in the chase, whether on guard at the nest or “making a passage” somewhere, the shrill, chat- tering notes are more likely to be uttered than not. Descriptions of bird notes by means of words are often wide of the mark. It is a difficult matter except in some few striking cases to render avian vocal sounds into English or other words. However, it seems to be the only way to give any idea as to what they are. In the case of dominicensis there are several interpretations, but all convey much the same idea. Richard Hill says that it utters “a ceaseless shriek,” being a repeti- tion of three notes like the word “pe-cheer-y.” This is the commonest term used to describe the notes. They are, definitely, three-syllabled, with the accent on the second. F.M. Weston’s comment on the voice follows: “The gray kingbird is even noisier than the eastern kingbird. The usual written description of its notes, although poor, is adequate, and, in my own experience, gave me instant recognition of the first gray kingbird I ever heard, even before I saw it. However, it was the quality of the sound that indicated a kingbird of some: sort, and my recollection of the accenting of the written words that led to the recognition of the species. On one occasion, I heard an eastern kingbird give an exact imitation of the notes of its larger relative.” The last sentence is commended to readers living in the range of the gray kingbird. As characteristic as are the notes of this bird, it will be noted that 7. tyrannus is capable of mimicry, and records of birds heard but not seen should be verified. Doubtless this is unusual; indeed, it is the sole instance of the kind that has come to my notice, but if one common kingbird can imitate notes, others can. It isan extremely interesting and important bit of information. Frank M. Chapman (1912) describes the gray kingbird’s notes as “pitirri[e],” a term applied in Cuba for the common name of the species. Indeed, the majority of vernacular names are derived from the voice, as might be expected. James Bond (1936) lists other names as follows: Petchary (Jamaica); fighter, christomarie, pick-peter (Bahamas) ; pewitler (Barbados) ; pipiri (Lesser Antilles) ; chicheri (Virgin Islands) ; pitirre (Cuba, Puerto Rico) ; titirre (Dominica) ; pipirite (Haiti). It will be recalled that Audubon wrote of the bird under the name of pipiry flycatcher. The phonetic similarity be- tween all these names is striking, particularly the last five, which are all but identical. The name “fighter” (Bahamas) is obviously drawn from other characteristics, and in view of J. H. Riley’s 44 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM experience with nesting birds there, it might be inferred that pugnacity is more developed in Bahaman birds than elsewhere! B. S. Bowdish (1903) states that the gray kingbird sometimes utters a note “at times quite similar to some the phoebe occasionally utters.” I have been impressed with this also and have heard it several times in the Florida Keys. Field marks.—The gray kingbird is a very distinctive and indi- vidual species. I can see no reason for confusion or doubt about iden- tification arising from any similarity to others of its genus, even on first sight. True, it is similar to the common kingbird in contour and general appearance at a distance, but in any position, or almost any distance within reason, it is instantly to be recognized as a kingbird. Audubon (1840) though of course recognizing the first ones he saw as something different, seemed much impressed by the similarity to tyrannus. He says that “its whole demeanour so much resembles that of the Tyrant Flycatcher, that, were it not for its greater sizer, and the difference in its notes, it might be mistaken for that bird, as I think it has been on former occasions by travellers less intent than I on distinguishing species.” Curiously enough, he makes no allusion whatever to what I con- sider the bird’s most striking character as compared to other king- birds. That is its color! This has certainly appealed to nearly everyone who has seen the species and can hardly fail to do so. There is no mistake in this bird’s name, for the gray kingbird is eminently and strikingly gray. The first one I ever saw vividly brought to mind the loggerhead shrike (Zanius ludoviciana), not in shape, size, or anything save the color. Somehow ever since the shrike has come to my mind when I have seen a gray kingbird. Referring again to F. M. Weston’s excellent notes, we find that he characterizes the shade of gray as an “almost ghostly paleness.” That it impressed him markedly is evidenced in the following com- ment: “On first acquaintance with the gray kingbird, an observer familiar only with the eastern kingbird is struck by the much larger size, particularly the larger beak, of the gray bird. The lack of the white terminal band on the tail is immediately noticed. The most striking feature though is the almost ghostly paleness of the whole bird when seen in its chosen habitat of pale vegetation and glaring sunlight. Among the sparse grayish-green foliage and pale-gray bushy twigs of the scrubby live oaks, the bird enjoys almost perfect color protection.” Among mangroves this blending of bird and background is not to be noted. The mangrove does not occur in the Pensacola region, however, and Weston has not seen the bird in far southern Florida. GRAY KINGBIRD 45 Against the dark, glossy green of the mangroves, the gray kingbird stands out sharply, but in such vegetation as described above the protective coloration would undoubtedly be impressive. Weston considers the difference in size between dominicensis and tyrannus to be considerable, viz, “much larger.” E. H. Forbush (1927), in his “Field Marks” of the species, says that it is “similar in size and shape to the kingbird, but somewhat larger ete.” Mr. Forbush admitted that he was not at all sure he had seen the species himself. Had he done so, he would have undoubtedly been impressed with the distinctly larger size. The beak of the gray kingbird is so much larger than that of tyrannus that it seems over-sized and top- heavy, being very broad and flattened at the base. So, between size, color, larger beak, and absence of the white-tipped tail, the gray kingbird stands alone and can hardly be mistaken for any other bird. Fall—While the gray kingbird has a very limited range in this country—virtually one State, Florida—it does wander at times, as so many birds will. Extralimital records, however, are exceedingly uncommon. Other than the few breeding records for South Caro- lina and Georgia, occurrence of dominicensis in the United States is confined to but four Eastern States and one western Canadian Province, the latter the most remarkable of all. Most of these wanderings appear to be indulged in during the autumnal migration, and some of the distances reached and the dearth of records in in- tervening territory are noteworthy. In Florida the fall migration is rather early. Arthur H. Howell (1932) notes departures from “St. Marks [Gulf coast] September 26, 1917, and New Smyrna [east coast] September 18, 1924.” A specimen seen by Dr. H. C. Burgess in the lower Everglades on December 26, 1917, will be commented on later. F. M. Weston says of the Pensa- cola area: “Fall migration is early, often by the last week in August. The latest dates in my journal are September 6, 1931, and Septem- ber 18, 1927.” He has this to add on the behavior of the adults and young in late summer: “After the nesting season, the family group remains together until time for departure. At this time they some- times wander a bit from the beach habitat and have been seen in clearings in the pine woods several miles from the Gulf. The Naval Air Station birds come out into the bare industrial section of the station and catch their prey of flying insects from the vantage point of a concrete coping or a steel tower.” In the Florida Keys I have seen numbers of the birds late in September; at Tavernier, Key Largo, on October 2; and Key West on October 4. They no doubt remain in the Keys until well after these dates. Usually I do not visit Key West in November but start my winter trips to that point early in December. No birds were in evi- 46 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM dence then in any of the past five years in any part of the Keys, Upper or Lower, nor at Cape Sable. It is my belief that late October or early November sees the last of the migrants depart. Outside of Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia (for which last two States there are no fall records) occurrence of the gray kingbird is accidental, but the few instances are worth mention. Progressing northward from the normal range, the Middle Atlantic States exhibit no records, and New Jersey is the first northern State to show one. Its presence in that State is recorded at Cape May by Julian K. Potter (1923), A remarkable thing about this note is that no date is mentioned in connection with it! While a party of members of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club were exploring the meadows and dunes at Cape May Point, at the mouth of Delaware Bay, we were attracted by a bird which flew out from a growth of wind swept and half dead Red Cedars in Pond Creek Meadow. It dashed out into the air seized an insect and returned to its perch. It had all the actions of a King- bird and such we supposed it to be. But when a dozen glasses were levelled at it we saw to our surprise that the bird lacked the characteristic white tip to its tail; the upper surface was found to be gray and in addition a dark line extended through the eye like that of a shrike though broader and not so distinct. In actions and general appearance the bird was like our ordinary Kingbird. He made no sound of any kind while under observation. We were trying to place the bird when someone produced one of those ever ready bird identifiers, Reed’s ‘Pocket Bird Guide,’ and turned to the Kingbird and there on the opposite page was the Gray Kingbird. 'The bird in the tree was com- pared with the picture in the book and was found to be identical in every detail. For further confirmation a description was written and sent to Dr. Witmer Stone with the question attached ‘What is it?’ The answer came back next morning over the wire ‘Gray Kingbird.’ Several of those who saw the bird examined skins the next day at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and further confirmed the identification. This is the first record of the species for New Jersey and, we believe, with one exception, the first record north of South Carolina. I wrote to Mr. Potter and asked him the date of this observation, and he answered by stating that it was May 30, 1923. (It would seem from this date that the above observation should have been included in the division “Spring,” but since the occurrence is purely accidental, it was thought best to mention it in this discussion of extralimital records.) Still farther north, the gray kingbird has been taken once in New York State on Long Island. This is said by Ludlow Griscom (1923) to have been “at Setauket, Long Island, about 1874,” but no details are given. Strangely, all remaining gray kingbird records for the United States come from New England: Two of them are from Massachusetts, many years apart. The first is mentioned by For- bush, that of an immature bird, taken at Lynn on October 23, 1869, by C. F. Goodale. Mr. Forbush stated that “it has been reported GRAY KINGBIRD 47 more than once in Massachusetts, but the record given above appears to be the only one substantiated by a specimen taken in the state.” The disposition of this bird was not mentioned by Mr. Forbush but is cleared up in the quotation that appears below. The second Massachusetts occurrence of the gray kingbird was noted on November 22, 1931, and was recorded in graphic style by F. H. Allen and Ludlow Griscom (19382) : On November 22, 1931, a party of observers was working in West Newbury, Essex County * * * when Allen spied a bird on the telegraph wires, which Griscom thought was a large flycatcher * * * We were properly astounded to recognize a Gray Kingbird * * * We all had a perfect study of the kingbird, easily noting all the diagnostic characters, It seemed highly desirable to collect the specimen, but the party was weaponless. Griscom accordingly walked to the nearest house to borrow a shotgun * * * obtained the gun * * * but the available ammunition consisted of two No. 2 shells. Griscom was devoid of experience in collecting small land birds with No. 2 shot * * * but the bird was secured compara- tively undamaged. The specimen proved to be an adult female and has been presented to the Peabody Museum at Salem * * * The date is the height of the fall migra- tion of the species from the West Indies to South America. A low pressure area which blanketed New England in rain, fog, and mist for five days during the preceding week may have been attended by strong winds farther south. The only other record for New England is based on a bird shot in 1869, also in Essex Co., Mass., and preserved in the Boston Society of Natural History, the latter fact unrecorded by Forbush. Since this note was published, the gray kingbird has again ap- peared in New England, this time in Maine, even farther north than Massachusetts. The following notes concerning this occurrence were furnished by my friend Martin Curtler and are considered ab- solutely authentic. Having been afield with Mr. Curtler on western and southern trips, I have had his care and accuracy in field identifi- cation impressively demonstrated. This record, representing the farthest north occurrence of the gray kingbird in the United States, has never before been published and is quoted as Mr. Curtler sent it: “My gray kingbirds were seen at the southwest end of Deer Isle (11%4 miles from Stonington) [Maine], on September 14, 1938. I observed them at close quarters for upwards of an hour; and they were particularly tame, allowing a close approach. They can have been nothing else. At first I thought the single one I saw first was a shrike, being pale gray, with a dark line through the eye. But I soon saw I was mistaken, i. e., on getting my glasses on him. And then, the behavior of the pair later was just like a couple of common kingbirds, sitting on vantage-points, swooping down and out into the air after insects and returning to where they had been before. I caught a glimpse of pale yellow under the wings ... they were quite silent. It was brilliantly sunny, about 12 noon.” 48 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM While Curtler does not stress the grayness of these birds in so many words, he was certainly impressed by it because he thought at first he was seeing a shrike! He is the only correspondent who likens the species to that bird, an impression I have always enter- tained since seeing my first specimen! It will be noted too that these three New England records have each occurred in a different fall month; Maine in September, Massachusetts in October and November. The most extraordinary extralimital occurrence of the gray king- bird is the sole Canadian record, of which P. A. Taverner (1934) has very aptly said: “An accidental straggler that may never occur again within our borders.” The bare facts of this amazing record are that on September 29, 1889, a specimen was secured by a Miss Cox at Cape Beale, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and was presented to and still exists in the Provincial Museum, Victoria. What it was doing there will forever remain a mystery. So far as I am aware, the possibility that it was a cagebird was not raised. It is extremely doubtful whether the gray kingbird ever remains in south Florida in winter. Everything points to the fact that it leaves this country completely. There is but a single record of its occurrence in winter in the United States, this being quoted by Arthur H. Howell (19382). He states that “Dr. H. C. Burgess saw one at Royal Palm Hammock, December 26 to 28, 1917, which occur- rence seems to indicate that a few pass the winter in extreme southern Florida.” ‘This seems to be a very tenuous thread on which to base an assumption of this sort. It is tremendously more likely that the Burgess specimen was a belated migrant. December 26 is not an excessively late date, and the apparently complete absence of January and February records would be much more indicative that the species does not pass the winter in south Florida. To those thoroughly familiar with south Florida, Howell’s nomen- clature of the locality of the Burgess specimen tends toward confu- sion, for he consistently confuses Royal Palm Hammock with Paradise Key, considering the two to be synonymous terms for the same locality (Howell, 1932, p. 61). As a matter of fact, the two are entirely different places, removed from each other by a hundred miles of road. Paradise Key is Royal Palm State Park, situated about 12 miles southwest of Homestead, Dade County, in the lower Everglades. (This is the location of the Burgess observation.) Royal Palm Hammock is about 14 miles west of Carnestown, Col- lier County, on the Tamiami Trail, between Everglades City and Naples. It even appears on most road maps. In connection with the sanctuary work of the Audubon Society, I spend about two weeks out of every month in south Florida, GRAY KINGBIRD 49 from October through May, except November, every year. This results in at least seven trips during the fall and winter, and has been the case since 1935. The time is spent entirely in the field, and in all 35 trips have been made to date. I have never seen the gray kingbird in winter in south Florida, either on the mainland or in the Keys. Paradise Key is often visited and so is the Cape Sable region, and all the area between Northwest Cape and Madeira Bay, east and west of Flamingo. Key West is always the terminus of these trips, several days being spent there each time. The Ten Thousand Islands and the many rivers of the southwest coast are frequently investigated, as is the whole of Florida Bay. Therefore, I can state definitely that, as far as five years of inten- sive field work are concerned, the gray kingbird is absent from this region in winter, and questions asked of residents who say they know the bird have resulted in similar conclusions. It is by no means im- possible that it may appear in future, but the probability is that any bird seen after December 1 is a belated migrant and not a wintering specimen. DISTRIBUTION Range.—Southeastern United States, the West Indies, and northern South America; casual on the coast of Central America; accidental in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and British Columbia. Breeding range—The gray kingbird breeds north to northern Florida (Pensacola, Santa Rosa Island, and St. Marks) ; and rarely South Carolina (Sullivans Island). East to rarely South Carolina (Sullivans Islands) ; probably rarely Georgia (Blackbeard Island and St. Marys) ; eastern Florida (St. Augustine and New Smyrna) ; the Bahama Islands (Elbow Cay, Eleuthera, and Watling Island) ; Haiti (Tortue Island) ; the Dominican Republic (Sanchez); Puerto Rico (Aguadilla and Yabucoa); the Lesser Antilles (Anegada, St. Bar- tholomew, Dominica, Barbados, and Grenada); and eastern Vene- zuela (Rio Uracoa). South to Venezuela (Rio Uracoa, La Pedrita, and Ciudad Bolivar) ; and Colombia (Noarama). West to western Colombia (Noarama, Blanco, Varrud, and Santa Marta); Jamaica (Port Henderson); western Cuba (Isle of Pines, Pilotes, and Habana); and western Florida (Dry Tortugas, Sevenoaks, and Pensacola). Winter range.—The species is apparently resident in the South American portion of its range and in most of the West Indies, north at least to Puerto Rico (Vieques Island and Cartagena Lagoon) ; the Dominican Republic (Monte Cristi); Haiti (Port-au-Prince) ; and the Isle of Pines. The range as outlined is for the species, which has been separated into two subspecies. The typical gray kingbird (7. d. doménicensis) 50 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM is found over the entire range except the southern islands of the Lesser Antilles and the island of Trinidad, which are occupied by the Jarge-billed kingbird (7. d. vorazx). Spring migration.—EKarly dates of spring arrivals are: Cuba— Trinidad, March 19. Bahamas—Watling Island, March 27. Flor- ida—Fort Myers, March 12; New Smyrna, April 8; St. Marks, April 14. Fall migration —tLate dates of fall departure from Florida are: St. Marks, September 29; St. Augustine, October 27; Royal Palm Hammock, December 28. Casual records—The species has been recorded either by sight or the collection of specimens from Quintana Roo (Cozumel Island), Honduras (between La Ceiba and Puerto Castilla), Nicaragua (Greytown), Costa Rica, and Panama (Gatun, Colon, Permé, and Obaldia), but it can be considered as of only casual occurrence in this region. It was recorded from Cayenne, French Guiana, on October 16, 1902, and November 18, 1902. One was seen at Cape May Point, N. J., on May 30, 1933, and one was taken at Setauket, Long Island, N. Y., about the middle of July 1874. A specimen was collected at Lynn, Mass., early in Octo- ber 1869, and another was taken at West Newbury on November 22, 1931. A remarkable record is that of one taken at Cape Beale, British Columbia, on September 29, 1889, Eqg dates—Florida: 58 records, April 5 to July 30; 30 records, May 20 to 29, indicating the height of the season. South Carolina: 1 record, May 380. West Indies: 9 records, March 23 to July 8. TYRANNUS MELANCHOLICUS COUCHI Baird COUCH’S KINGBIRD HABITS Couch’s kingbird is the name of one of the northern races of a widely distributed species that ranges through Central and South America. Its breeding range extends from the valley of the lower Rio Grande in southern Texas southward through northeastern Mexico to Veracruz and Puebla. It is a large, pale race of the species; in comparing it with Lich- tenstein’s kingbird, the more southern race, Ridgway (1907) says: “Similar to the lighter colored examples of 7’. m. satrapa but decid- edly larger, grayish brown of tail and wings paler, chin and upper throat more purely white, color of chest more yellowish, and ‘mantle’ more uniformly yellowish olive-green.” COUCH’S KINGBIRD 51 At the time that Baird described this bird (Baird, Cassin, and Lawrence, 1860), it had not been recorded north of the Mexican border, though it was supposed to range north to the valley of the Rio Grande in Mexico, To George B. Sennett (1878) belongs the honor of adding it to our fauna; he writes: “On May 8th, I saw a number of this species at Lomita Ranch, on the ebony-trees. Three were shot, but only one secured, the others being lost in the tall grass and thickets. At this point is the finest grove of ebonies I saw on the river. On the hillside, back of the buildings, they overlook the large resaca, then filled with tasseled corn. It was the tops of these grand old trees that these Flycatchers loved, and so persistent were they in staying there that I thought they were going to settle in the neighborhood for the season. There was a company of some six or eight scattered about.” When I visited southern Texas, in 1923, we found Couch’s king- bird fairly common during May in Cameron and Hidalgo Counties, where it was breeding. It was one of the characteristic birds of the chaparral, where it was often seen, and oftener heard, in that pigmy forest of mesquite, ebony, retama, granjena, persimmon, madrona, and shittim wood, with an undergrowth of various thorny bushes, such as the fragrant cat’s-claw, round-flowered devil’s-claw, and that thorniest of all thorny bushes, the Corona christi. A fully fledged young, evidently recently from the nest, was discovered on May 28; its noisy parents were making a great demonstration of anxiety over it. But we did not discover its nest. Nesting—Mr. Sennett’s collector, Mr. Bourbois, took what was probably the first set of eggs of this kingbird to be taken north of the Mexican boundary. It was taken, with the parent birds, at Lomita Ranch, on the Rio Grande, Texas, in 1881. Mr. Sennett (1884) describes the nest as follows: “The nest was situated some twenty feet from the ground, on a small lateral branch of a large elm, in a fine grove not far from the houses of the ranch. It is com- posed of small elm twigs, with a little Spanish moss and a few branchlets and leaves of the growing elm intermixed. The sides of the nest are lined with fine rootlets, the bottom with the black hair- like heart of the Spanish moss. The outside diameter is 6 inches, and the depth 2 inches. The inside diameter is 3 inches, and the depth 1.25 inches.” A set of five eggs in my collection was taken in Tamaulipas, Mexico, on May 6, 1895, by or for Frank B. Armstrong; the nest was said to be made of Spanish moss, strips of bark, and plant down; it was placed near the end of a limb of a tree in open woods and only 8 feet from the ground. 52 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Eggs.—Couch’s kingbird evidently lays three to five eggs, oftener three or four. While showing the usual kingbird characteristics, they are usually distinctive. Mr. Sennett (1884), in describing his first set, says that they “are quite distinct in form, size, and ground- color from any others I have seen. The blotches, too, are more numerous and smaller. The large end is very round, and the small end quite pointed. * * * The ground-color is a rich buff. The general color of the blotches is similar to that of the Kingbird’s eggs, and their distribution irregular over the entire egg, but massed about the greater diameter. If this set proves to be typical I should have no trouble in selecting the eggs of this species from any num- ber of eggs of other species of the genus.” Based on a study of 13 eggs in the United States National Museum collection, Major Bendire (1895) says: “The ground color of the eggs is a delicate creamy pink, and they are moderately well blotched and spotted with chocolate, claret brown, heliotrope purple, and lavender. These markings are, in some instances, scattered pretty evenly over the entire surface of the egg; in others they are mainly confined to the larger end. They are readily distinguishable from the eggs of the balance of our Kingbirds by their peculiar ground color, while their markings are very similar to those found on the eggs of the other species of this family. The shell is close-grained and rather strong, and in shape the eggs are generally ovate or elongate ovate.” The measurements of 43 eggs average 24.8 by 18.4 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 27.2 by 19.7, 22.6 by 19.0, and 23.4 by 17.0 millimeters. Plumages.—As the plumages of this race seem to correspond very closely to those of Lichtenstein’s kingbird, the reader is referred to the remarks on this subject under that race, on which we have more information. Food and behavior—I can find nothing recorded on the food of this subspecies, which probably does not differ materially from that of the other tyrant flycatchers of this genus. Mr. Sennett (1878) found Couch’s kingbirds associated with common eastern kingbirds in the tops of the large ebony trees, where they were doubtless in pursuit of flying insects. He “did not find them shy, for after our firing they would almost immediately return to the same trees.” The birds that we saw in Texas were very noisy and apparently quite aggressive. Field marks—Couch’s kingbird bears a superficial resemblance to Cassin’s, and to a less degree to the Arkansas kingbird, though the white outer webs of the outer tail feathers of the latter, which the former two do not have, should eliminate any confusion. Couch’s COUCH’S KINGBIRD 53 is much like Cassin’s on the upper parts, but the tail is browner in Couch’s and blacker in Cassin’s. In Cassin’s only a small part of the chin is white, the throat and chest being extensively gray, “light neutral gray” to “pale neutral gray,” and the rest of the under parts are paler yellow, “lemon yellow” to “pinard yellow”; whereas in Couch’s the chin and whole throat are extensively white, and the under parts are a deep, rich “lemon chrome” or “empire yellow,” slightly tinged with olive or olive-gray on the chest. These differ- ences in color patterns should enable the observer to distinguish any of the subspecies of melancholicus from vociferans. DISTRIBUTION Range—Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas and northeastern Mexico. While there are several races of this species in South and Central America and in the West Indies, this is the only form that is a regular visitor to the United States. Its range extends north to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas (Lomita and Brownsville) ; and from this district south through eastern Mexico; Nuevo Leon (Ceralvo, Monte- rey, and Rio San Juan); Tamaulipas (Matamoros, Sierra Madre, Aldama, Altamira, and Tampico); to Veracruz (Papantla, Jalapa, and Orizaba). In winter it appears to withdraw entirely from the Texas area, but at this season it is found in northern Neuvo Leon (Ceralvo) and Tamaulipas (Matamoros). Early dates of spring arrival in Texas are: Brownsville, March 12, and Hidalgo, March 21. No dates of fall departure are available. Casual records—A specimen of 7. m. couchi taken at Kerrville, Tex., on September 11, 1908, is the most northerly record for this race. The west Mexican kingbird (7. m. occidentalis) has been recorded twice in the United States: A specimen taken at Fort Lowell, Ariz., on May 12, 1905, and one collected in Jefferson County, Wash., on November 18, 1916. Another race of this species, known as Lichtenstein’s kingbird (7. m. chloronotus), also has been recorded on two occasions at widely separated points. One was collected at Scarborough, Maine, on October 31, 1915, and another was taken at French’s Beach, British Columbia, in February 1923. Reexamination of the latter specimen would probably prove it to be the west Mexican race, occidentalis. Egg dates —Arizona: 2 records, May 11 and June 13. Mexico: 16 records, April 6 to July 28; 8 records, June 6 to 14, indicating the height of the season. Texas: 5 records, May 7 to 21. 324726—42-__5 54 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM TYRANNUS MELANCHOLICUS CHLORONOTUS Berlepsch LICHTENSTEIN’S KINGBIRD HABITS The normal range of this subspecies is from southern Veracruz, Mexico, southward to Colombia, Venezuela, and the lower Amazon Valley in Brazil. But, strangely enough, there seem to be no records of its occurrence in any part of the Southern United States; and still more strangely, its inclusion in our Check-list is based on two widely separated records of occurrence in Maine and on Vancouver Island, far remote from its normal habitat. Arthur H. Norton (1916) reported: “On October 31, 1915, Mr. George Oliver observed this stranger near his house in Scarborough, and secured it for the collection of the Portland Society of Natural History. Mr. Oliver said that it was seen the day before it was taken, and was thought to have been a shrike. Upon reaching the identification given, it was sent to the United States National Museum, where it was con- firmed by Mr. H. C. Oberholser, and Mr. Robert Ridgway. The bird was a young male, in very good condition. * * * It should be recalled in connection with this waif that two very intense tropical cyclones Visited the United States, one in August, the other in September, 1915.” The second specimen “was collected at French’s Beach, Renfrew District, Vancouver Island, in February 1923 by J. G. French.” This bird was identified by Maj. Allan Brooks, through the interest of J. A. Munro; and it was suggested that “it may have strayed so far north through the medium of a steamer” (Kermode, 1928). A. J. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) says that, in El Salvador, it is a “common resident of open or semiwooded country in the Arid Lower Tropical Zone. The species is most numerous on the coastal plain and in the lower foothills and only rarely straggles to an elevation of 4,500 feet. * * * Lichtenstein’s king- birds are generally distributed over open country everywhere in the lower levels and may, locally, be very common indeed. Such places as Colima and Divisadero, where much of the terrain is tree-dotted agricultural land, are eminently suited to their needs, and they were very numerous in both localities. They are much less common in wooded areas such as Lake Olomega and Puerto del Triunfo, where their spheres of activity are necessarily limited to clearings or waterfronts.” Nesting.—The same observer says that “the nests differ greatly from the bulky, padded structures of the northern species. One found at Zapotitén on June 12, 1912, was placed six feet from the LICHTENSTEIN’S KINGBIRD 05 ground in the foliage of a horizontal branch of a small mimosa tree. It was so thin and so poorly constructed that the three eggs could easily be seen from below. The body was of small twigs, and the nest cup was lined with fine round grasses. Another in an almost exactly similar situation, found at Lake Guija May 28, 1927, was somewhat better built, for its contents could not be seen from below. Like many other native species this one often takes advantage of wasps’ nests by placing its own home close by.” Eggs—There is a set of four eggs in the Thayer collection in Cambridge. These are ovate and show a slight gloss. The ground color is characteristic of the species, varying from cream-white to pale “seashell pink”; they are marked much like other kingbirds’ eggs with the same colors, and the spots are mainly grouped about the larger end. The measurements of 9 eggs average 24.52 by 18.15 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.4 by 18.6, 24.3 by 18.9, 23.8 by 18.0, and 24.1 by 17.6 millimeters. Plumages.—Ridgway (1907) describes the young, evidently in juve- nal plumage, as “essentially like adults, but without orange on crown, gray of head browner (smoke gray or drab gray), back, etc., duller olive, yellow of under parts usually paler, and wing-coverts and rec- trices conspicuously margined with pale cinnamon or buffy.” Mr. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) writes: The plumage sequences parallel those of Tyrannus verticalis and Tyrannus vociferans. At the postjuvenal body molt a body plumage like that of the adults is acquired. The juvenal wing feathers and rectrices are retained, sometimes until the annual molt of the following fall, but are usually replaced either in part or entirely during the first winter and spring. The concealed colored feathers of the crown also are delayed in their appearance until the spring molt. The annual molt commences in some birds as early as the middle of July, and in one specimen is as yet unfinished at so late a date as November 12. About August 1 to October 1 is probably the average molting period. The spring molt is ex- tensive and includes a varying number of rectrices. It occurs in February, March, or April. The degree of rapidity with which the dorsal plumage fades from olive-green to gray is astonishing. Just after the annual and postjuvenal molts the back is uniformly a solid, bright olive-green, but within a few weeks becomes duller and by midwinter is definitely gray. New feathers coming through at any time of the year are bright olive-green and this, contrasted with the older, gray ones, gives a mottled appearance. Food.—The only information I can find on this subject is the report. made by W. L. McAtee to Mr. Norton (1916) on the contents of the stomach of the bird taken in Maine, which were probably not typical of its normal food except in a general way. These contents were “remains of at least 16 Muscidae, part of them Pallenia rudis, and part of a metallic kind, probably Phormia, 96% ; 1 Scatophaga furcata and 1 Syrphus sp. 4%; bits of unidentified vegetable matter tr.” 56 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Behavior—Mr. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) says that “in general, these kingbirds resemble in habits their congeners of the north. The most noticeable differences are their comparatively placid and Jess pugnacious natures, and the very different character of the call-notes. Instead of the sharp, raucous clatter of sounds so characteristic of the northern species, the voice of chloronotus is sub- dued and at times almost musical.” TYRANNUS MELANCHOLICUS OCCIDENTALIS Hartert and Goodson WEST MEXICAN KINGBIRD HABITS The 1931 Check-list includes this Mexican race as a straggler, based on a specimen in the Dickey collection in the California Institute of Technology, collected by Carl Lien in Jefferson County, Wash., on November 18, 1916. In recording this specimen, A. J. van Rossem (1929) says: This specimen was purchased by Mr. Dickey from Paul Trapier as part of a general collection of Washington birds mostly taken by Mr. Lien. It was labelled by the original collector as “Ash-throated Flycatcher.” The specimen here recorded is somewhat soot-stained, but is clearly of the west-Mexican race which differs from the Central American in having paler, less intensely yellow underparts and slightly larger bill. Except for the darker tinge caused by soot-stain, it is very similar to two birds from Hscuinapa, Sinaloa, )*7)*7 = In view of the subspecific status of the Washington bird, it would appear that a re-examination of Mr. Kermode’s specimen is desirable. Logically, it should be of the north-west Mexican race rather than the Central American race.” Since the 1931 Check-list was published, James Lee Peters (1936) has discovered a specimen of the west Mexican kingbird in the Thayer collection in Cambridge; it was taken by H. H. Kimball at Fort Lowell, near Tucson, Ariz., on May 12, 1905. And now we have strong evidence to indicate that this kingbird may be a regular summer resident and breeder in southern Arizona. Allan R. Phillips (1940) reports that he has collected both adults and young birds, the latter evidently hatched in the vicinity, near Tucson, Ariz.; and during the summers of 1938 and 1939 he and his companions saw other families of these birds on several occasions, “making a total of possibly four pairs present in the area covered in 1939.” Mr. Phillips writes on the subject: It seems evident that the West Mexican Kingbird is a regular summer resident at the present time near Tucson, from May 12 to September 3 at least. The numbers present are not great. The birds have been seen by a few other ob- servers, also, including Dr. A. A. Allen, A. H. Anderson, Dr. Wm. L. Holt, F. W. Loetscher, Jr., and Gale Monson. The call of this kingbird is strikingly different from those of the three northern kingbirds, being of a metallic rather than a throaty quality. It consists of a ARKANSAS KINGBIRD 57 rapid series of short, staccato notes in an ascending, high-pitched series, and might be rendered as pit—it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it. In form the call somewhat re- sembles that of the Vermilion Flycatcher, but it is much louder, sharper, and higher-pitched. Besides the call, the heavy bill, whitish throat, bright yellow belly, and brownish, emarginate tail all help distinguish it in the field, and the tail characters are obvious in flight even at some distance. In spite of these several easy distinctions, it seems probable that the birds have been allowed to pass for Arkansas Kingbirds by the few ornithologists who have entered their restricted ranges in the summer months, We seem to have no evidence that the nesting habits and the eggs of this kingbird are in any way different from those of the other races of the species. The measurements of 45 eggs average 23.7 by 17.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.2 by 17.1, 20.1 by 17.9, and 24.9 by 16.2 millimeters. TYRANNUS VERTICALIS Say ARKANSAS KINGBIRD PLATE 6 HABITS We formerly regarded the Arkansas kingbird as a western bird, when it was known by the appropriate name of western kingbird. It was then merely a straggler east of the Mississippi River and was more or less rare as a wanderer or as a migrant in the States imme- diately west of that river. And, asa straggler, it wandered as far east as the Atlantic States during the latter half of the nineteenth century. For example, there is an early record for Eliot, Maine, in October 1864 (Haven, 1926), and one for Riverdale, N. Y., on October 19, 1875 (Bicknell, 1879). Since what is apparently the first Massachusetts record, Chatham, October 20, 1912 (Kennard, 1913), there have been so many New England records that this bird might almost be consid- ered a frequent visitor. And since the beginning of the twentieth century there have been numerous records from other Atlantic Coast States—New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and Florida. There is abundant evidence, also, that this kingbird has been ex- tending its wanderings, and even its breeding range, eastward in the interior during the past 40 years. Without devoting too much space to the subject, it seems worth while to cite a few examples. Referring to Manitoba, P. A. Taverner (1927) says: “This species is another recent arrival in Manitoba. E. T. Seton does not mention it in his 1891 list of ‘Birds of Manitoba’ and gives only adjoining records in his ‘Fauna of Manitoba,’ 1909. The first record for the province uppears to have been a specimen taken at Oak Lake, August 10, 1907.” Other records followed until now he calls it “rather common through- out southwestern Manitoba.” 58 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM For Minnesota, Dr. Thomas 8. Roberts (1932) writes: “three pairs were found in the Big Stone-Traverse lakes region in June, 1879 by Franklin Benner and the writer, the first record for the state; in 1889 it was found by Cantwell in Lac qui Parle County; in 1893 it was present in Pipestone (Roberts) and Otter Tail (Gault) counties and by 1898 had become a common nesting bird all over southwestern Minnesota as far east as Redwood, Cottonwood, and Jackson counties.” Later on, it extended its range farther north until it is “now an abundant summer resident throughout the western prairie portion of the state”; and “it has increased rapidly and spread eastward until in recent years it has reached the eastern part of the state south of the evergreen forests.” Arkansas kingbirds have been seen in summer and collected in breeding condition in Michigan since 1925 (Van Tyne, 1933), indi- cating an extension of range eastward from Minnesota. And now comes a breeding record for Ohio. Louis W. Campbell (1934), referring to a sight record in Lucas County in 1931, reports: “On July 29, 1933, some three miles east of the location of the sight record mentioned above I found a family of Arkansas kingbirds consisting of one adult and three young. * * * Two of the young, a male and a female, were collected. Although both of these birds were well able to fly, all the tail feathers and all but two or three of the primaries were still more than one-fourth sheathed. The condition of these feathers and general lack of devel- opment pointed to the conclusion that the birds had been out of the nest only a short time.” A similar eastward advance has been noted farther south around the turn of the century in Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Swenk and Dawson (1921) tell the story for Nebraska; and Mrs. Nice (1981a) gives the records for Oklahoma. If this kingbird continues to advance, it may yet reach Arkansas and its name may be justified. The Arkansas kingbird is a bird of the open country, associated in my mind with the prairie regions of the Middle West, the ranches and tree claims and the timber belts along the streams. In south- western Saskatchewan, in 1905 and 1906, we found this kingbird breeding commonly in such situations, but it was not so common in the timber belts as the eastern kingbird and was more likely to be seen about the ranch buildings and railroad stations. As to its haunts in Minnesota, Dr. Roberts (1932) says: “On the prairies this bird avoids the natural groves of timber, seeking the vicinity of habitations. Where there are no buildings on a tree- claim or the farm is deserted it is rarely found, probably because there is less insect food where there are no cattle. The bird invades the towns everywhere and builds commonly in the shade trees even ARKANSAS KINGBIRD 59 on business streets. At times it wanders far from home out over the prairies, and may frequently be seen perched on a wire or fence at a considerable distance from woodlands.” In Cochise County, Ariz., we found the Arkansas kingbird abun- dant at the lower levels, on the soapweed plains, about the ranches, and along the dry washes, where there were trees, but not venturing far up into the timbered canyons. Evidently the birds prefer the open country to the more restricted canyons. Courtship—tI have never seen the courtship performance of this bird, but E. S. Cameron (1907) makes the following brief statement in regard to it: “The male indulges in a curious display when court- ing the female. He makes successive darts in the air, fluttering, vibrating his quills, and trilling as he shoots forward. Propelling himself thus for several hundred yards, he looks like a bird gone mad.” Nesting —The Arkansas kingbird builds its nest in a great variety of situations, almost anywhere except on the ground. It apparently prefers to build in trees, where suitable trees are available, which very often is not the case. If in a tree, the nest may be placed against the trunk, in a crotch, or, more often, out on a horizontal branch, or occasionally on a dead branch. It may be placed at any height from 8 to 40 feet above the ground, but oftener 15 to 30 feet. Nests may also be placed on bushes as low as 5 feet from the ground. Some- times several pairs build their nests close together in a grove or small group of trees; and two or more nests have been found in a single tree on rare occasions. The trees most often chosen are cottonwoods, oaks, sycamores, and willows, perhaps because they happen to be the commonest trees available. Nests have also been recorded in elms, eucalyptus, junipers, apple trees and other orchard trees, locusts, aspens, alders, and rarely pines; probably a number of others might be added to the list, for these birds do not seem to be at all particular in their choice. Claude T. Barnes writes to me that he has many times noted the fondness of these birds for locust trees, and thinks this may be due to their height and comparative openness of foliage. These kingbirds seem to prefer an open situation where they can com- mand a clear outlook. Most of the nests that I have seen have been in trees, but in Alberta near Many Island Lake, on June 16, 1906, we stopped to examine a Swainson’s hawk’s nest that was situated in a little patch of large brush on a steep hillside; the hawk flew from the nest as we ap- proached; and within a few yards of the hawk’s nest we found an Arkansas kingbird’s nest with three fresh eggs in it; it was placed only 5 feet from the ground in a “stony berry bush.” On the soap- weed plains in Cochise County, Ariz., on June 1, 1922, while we were 60 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM hunting for nests of Scott’s oriole, we found a nest of this kingbird built in the upright, dead flower stalk of a soapweed yucca 14 feet from the ground. Where no suitable trees are available, the Arkansas kingbird is most adaptable and versatile in the selection of a nesting site, being satisfied to utilize almost any form of human structure that will hold its nest, preferably such stable structures as telephone or telegraph poles, fence posts, stationary towers, parts of buildings, or boxes set up for that purpose; but in many cases the chosen site is far from stationary or secure, with resulting disaster. The following quota- tions will illustrate its versatility. Major Bendire (1895) writes: Mr. William G. Smith informs me that in Colorado they nest occasionally on ledges. Dr. C. T. Cocke writes me that a pair of these birds nested in the summer of 1891 in a church steeple in Salem, Oregon, and Mr. Elmer T. Judd, of Cando, North Dakota, informs me that he found a nest on a beam of a rail- road windmill pump, about 6 feet from the ground, where trains passed close by the nest constantly; another was found by him on a grainbinder which was standing within a couple of rods of a public schoolhouse. I have examined many of their nests in various parts of the West. * * * One nest was placed in the top of a hollow cottonwood stump, the rim of the nest being flush with the top; another pair made use of an old nest of the Western Robin; and still another built on the sill of one of the attic windows of my quarters at Fort Lapwai, Idaho. They probably would not have suc- ceeded in keeping this nest in place had I not nailed a piece of board along the outside to prevent the wind from blowing the materials away as fast as the birds could bring them. They were persistent, however, and not easily dis- couraged, working hard for a couple of days in trying to secure a firm founda- tion before I came to their assistance. Both birds were equally diligent in the construction of their home until it was nearly finished, when the female did most of the arranging of the inner lining, and many a consultation was evi- dently indulged in between the pair before the nest was finally ready for occu- pation, a low twittering being kept up almost constantly. It took just a week to build it. John G. Tyler (1913), writing of the Fresno district, Calif., says: Formerly they resorted to the framework of flumes, windmills, outbuildings, and even the tops of fence posts; but of recent years the rural telephone lines that have thrown their network of wires and poles all over the valley have provided nesting sites galore, and of a kind seemingly exactly suited to the requirements of these birds. * * * Where the lines cross entrances to farmhouses or intersecting roads, * * * the wires are raised several feet. * * * This additional height is attained by nailing two two-inch pieces to the original pole on opposite sides, thus leaving a four inch platform protected on two sides, in which a nest just fits sungly.