Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. 2, No. 4

The little hawks and crows I never attack, and yet they call me a bully. Sometimes I do go for a Song-bird or a Robin, but only when they come too near my nest. People wonder why I never attack the cunning Catbird. I’ll never tell them, you may be sure!

To what family do I belong? To a large family called Flycatchers. Because some Kings are tyrants I suppose, they call me the Tyrant Flycatcher. Look for me next summer on top of a wire fence or dead twig of a tree, and watch me, every few minutes, dash into the air, seize a passing insect, and then fly back to the same perch again.

Any other names? Yes, some folks call me the Bee Bird or Bee Martin. Once in awhile I change my diet and do snap up a bee! but it is always a drone, not a honey-bee. Some ill-natured people say I choose the drones because they can’t sting, and not because they are tramp bees and will not work.

Sing? Yes, when my mate is on her nest I please her with a soft pretty song, at other times my call-note is a piercing Kyrie-K-y-rie! I live with you only in the summer. When September comes I fly away to a warmer climate.

SUMMARY

Page 123.

BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER.—Dendroica blackburniæ.

Range – Eastern North America; breeds from northern Minnesota and southern Maine northward to Labrador and southward along the Alleghenies to South Carolina; winters in the tropics.

Nest – Of fine twigs and grasses, lined with grasses and tendrils, in coniferous trees, ten to forty feet up.

Eggs – Four, grayish white or bluish white, distinctly and obscurely spotted, speckled, and blotched with cinnamon brown or olive brown.

Page 128.

AMERICAN GOLDFINCH.—Spinus tristis. Other names: “Yellow-bird,” “Thistle-bird.”

Range – Eastern North America; breeds from South Carolina to southern Labrador; winters from the northern United States to the Gulf.

Nest – Externally, of fine grasses, strips of bark and moss, thickly lined with thistle down; in trees or bushes, five to thirty feet up.

Eggs – Three to six, pale bluish white.

Page 131.

CHIMNEY SWIFT.—Chætura pelagica. Other name: “Chimney Swallow.”

Range – Eastern North America; breeds from Florida to Labrador; winters in Central America.

Nest – A bracket-like basket of dead twigs glued together with saliva, attached to the wall of a chimney, generally about ten feet from the top, by the gummy secretions of the bird’s salivary glands.

Eggs – Four to six, white.

Page 135.

HORNED LARK.—Otocoris alpestris. Other name: “Shore Lark.”

Range – Breeds in northern Europe, Greenland, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Hudson Bay region; southward in winter into eastern United States to about latitude 35°.

Nest – Of grasses, on the ground.

Eggs – Three or four, pale bluish or greenish white, minutely and evenly speckled with pale grayish brown.

Page 140.

SAPSUCKER, YELLOW-BELLIED.—Sphyrapicus varius.

Range – Eastern North America; breeds from Massachusetts northward, and winters from Virginia to Central America.

Nest – About forty feet from the ground.

Eggs – Five to seven.

Page 141.

WARBLING VIREO.—Vireo gilvus. Other name: “Yellow-throated Vireo.”

Range – North America; breeds as far north as the Hudson Bay region; winters in the tropics.

Nest – Pensile, of grasses and plant fibres, firmly and smoothly interwoven, lined with fine grasses, suspended from a forked branch eight to forty feet up.

Eggs – Three or four, white, with a few specks or spots of black umber, or rufous-brown, chiefly about the larger end.

Page 146.

WOOD PEWEE.—Contopus Virens.

Range – Eastern North America; breeds from Florida to Newfoundland; winters in Central America.

Nest – Compact and symmetrical, of fine grasses, rootlets and moss, thickly covered with lichens, saddled on a limb, twenty to forty feet up.

Eggs – Three or four, white, with a wreath of distinct and obscure markings about the larger end.

Page 150.

SNOWFLAKE.—Plectrophenax nivalis. Other name: “Snow Bunting.”

Range – Northern parts of northern hemisphere, breeding in the arctic regions; in North America, south in Winter into the northern United States, irregularly to Georgia, southern Illinois, and Kansas.

Nest – Of grasses, rootlets, and moss, lined with finer grasses and feathers, on the ground.

Eggs – Four to seven, pale bluish white, thinly marked with umber or heavily spotted or washed with rufous-brown.

Page 153.

JUNCO—Junco hyemalis. Other name: “Snowbird.”

Range – North America; breeds from northern Minnesota to northern New York and southward along the summits of the Alleghenies to Virginia; winters southward to the Gulf States.

Nest – Of grasses, moss, and rootlets, lined with fine grasses and long hairs, on or near the ground.

Eggs – Four or five, white or bluish white, finely or evenly speckled or spotted, sometimes heavily blotched at the larger end with rufous-brown.

Page 158.

KINGBIRD.—Tyrannus tyrannus.

Range – North America north to New Brunswick and Manitoba; rare west of the Rocky Mountains; winters in Central and South America.

Nest – Compact and symmetrical, of weed-stocks, grasses, and moss, lined with plant down, fine grasses, and rootlets, generally at the end of a branch fifteen to twenty-five feet from the ground.

Eggs – Three to five, white, spotted with umber.