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THE GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER.
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P L A T E C X X I X . MALE.
How often whilst gazing on the nest of a bird, admiring the beauty
of its structure, or wondering at the skill displayed in securing it from
danger, have I been led to question myself why there is often so much
difference in the conformation and materials of those of even the same
species, in different latitudes or localities. How often, too, while admiring
the bird itself, have I in vain tried to discover the causes why more
mental and corporeal hardihood should have been granted to certain individuals,
which although small and seemingly more delicate than others,
are wont to force their way, and that at an early season, quite across the
whole extent of the United States; while others, of greater bodily magnitude,
equal powers of flight, and similar courage, never reach so far, in
fact merely enter our country or confine their journeys to half the distance
to which the others reach. The diminutive Ruby-throated Humming
bird, the delicate Winter Wren, and many warblers, all birds of
comparatively short flight, are seen to push their way from the West
India Islands, or the table-lands of Mexico and South America, farther
north than our boundary-lines, before they reach certain localities, which
we cannot look upon but as being the favourite places of rendezvous allotted
to these beings for their summer abode.
How wonderful have I thought it that all birds which migrate are
not equally privileged. Why do not the Turkey Buzzard, the Forktailed
Hawk, and many others possessing remarkable ease and power of
flight, visit the same places ? There the Vulture would find its favourite
carrion during the heat of the dog-days, and the Hawk abundance of insects.
Why do not the Pigeons found in the south ever visit the State
of Maine, when one species, the Columba migratoria, is permitted to
ramble over the whole extent of our vast country ? And why does the
small Pewee go so far north, accompanied by the Tyrant Flycatcher;
while the Titirit, larger and stronger than either, remains in the Floridas
and Carolinas, and the Great Crested Flycatcher, the bird now before
you, seldom travels farther east than Connecticut ? Reader, can you assist
me ? 1
GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER. 177
The places chosen by the Great Crested Flycatcher for its nest are so
peculiar, and the composition of its fabric is so very different from that
of all others of the genus with which I am acquainted, that perhaps no
one on seeing it for the first time, would imagine it to belong to a Flycatcher.
There is nothing of the elegance of some, or of the curious texture
of others, displayed in it. Unlike its kinsfolk, it is contented to seek
a retreat in the decayed part of a tree, of a fence-rail, or even of a prostrate
log mouldering on the ground. I have found it placed in a short
stump at the bottom of a ravine, where the tracks of racoons were as close
together as those of a flock of sheep in a fold, and again in the lowest
fence-rail, where the black snake could have entered it, sucked the eggs
or swallowed the young with more ease than by ascending to some large
branches of a tree forty feet from the ground, where after all the reptile
not unfrequently searches for such dainties. In all those situations, our
bird seeks a place for its nest, which is composed of more or fewer materials,
as the urgency may require, and I have observed that in the nests
nearest the ground, the greatest quantity of grass, fibrous roots, feathers,
hair of different quadrupeds, and exuviae of snakes was accumulated. The
nest is at all times a loose mass under the above circumstances. Sometimes,
when at a great height, very few materials are used, and in more
than one instance I found the eggs merely deposited on the decaying particles
of the wood, at the bottom of a hole in a broken branch of a tree,
sometimes of one that had been worked out by the grey squirrel. The
eggs are from four to six, of a pale cream colour, thickly streaked with
deep purplish-brown of different tints, and, I believe, seldom more than
a single brood is raised in the season.
The Great Crested Flycatcher arrives in Louisiana and the adjacent
country in March. Many remain there and breed, but the greater number
advance towards the Middle States, and disperse among the lofty woods,
preferring at all times sequestered places. I have thought that they gave
a preference to the high lands, and yet I have often observed them in the
low sandy woods of New Jersey. Louisiana, and the countries along the
Mississippi, together with the State of Ohio, are the districts most visited
by this species in one direction, and in another the Atlantic States as far
as Massachusetts. In this last, however, it is very seldom met with unless
in the vicinity of the mountains, where occasionally some are found
breeding. Farther eastward it is entirely unknown.
Tyrannical perhaps in a degree surpassing the King Bird itself, it
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