Kill not thy friend, who thy whole harvest shields, -I plead in vain! Amid the bursting roar The poor, lost KING-BIRD, welters in his gore. This species is eight inches long, and fourteen in extent; the general colour above is a dark slaty ash; the head and tail are nearly black; the latter even at the end, and tipt with white; the wings are more of a brownish cast; the quills and wing coverts are also edged with dull white; the upper part of the breast is tinged with ash; the throat, and all the rest of the lower parts are pure white; the plumage on the crown, though not forming a crest, is frequently erected, as represented in the plate, and discovers a rich bed of brilliant orange, or flame colour, called by the country people his crown; when the feathers lie close this is altogether concealed. The bill is very broad at the base, overhanging at the point, and notched, of a glossy black colour, and furnished with bristles at the base; the legs and feet are black, seamed with gray; the eye hazel. The female differs in being more brownish on the upper parts, has a smaller streak of paler orange on the crown; and a narrower border of duller white on the tail. The young birds do not receive the orange on the head during their residence here the first season. This bird is very generally known, from the lakes to Florida. Besides insects, they feed, like every other species of their tribe with which I am acquainted, on various sorts of berries, particularly blackberries, of which they are extremely fond. Early in September they leave Pennsylvania on their way to the south. A few days ago, I shot one of these birds, the whole plumage of which was nearly white, or a little inclining to a cream colour; it was a bird of the present year, and could not be more may so than a month old. This appeared also to have been its original colour, as it issued from the egg. The skin was yellowish white; the eye much lighter than usual; the legs and bill blue. It was plump and seemingly in good order. I presented it to Mr. Peale. Whatever may be the cause of this loss of colour, if I call it, in birds, it is by no means uncommon among the various tribes that inhabit the United States. The Sparrow Hawk, Sparrow, Robin, Red-winged Blackbird, and many others, are occasionally found in white plumage; and I believe that such birds do not become so by climate, age or disease, but that they are universally hatched so. The same phenomena are observable not only among various sorts of animals, but even among the human race; and a white negro is no less common, in proportion to their numbers, than a white Blackbird; though the precise cause of this in either is but little understood. GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER. [Plate XIII.-Fig. 2.] LINN. Syst. 325.—Lath. 11, 357.—Arct. Zool. p. 385, No. 267.— Le mouche-rolle de Virginie a huppe verte, BUFF. Iv, 565. Pl. Enl. 569.-PEALE'S Museum, No. 6645. By glancing at the physiognomy of this bird and the rest of the figures on the same plate, it will readily be observed, that they all belong to one particular family of the same genus. They possess strong traits of their particular cast, and are all remarkably dexterous at their profession of fly-cathing. The one now before us is less generally known than the preceding, being chiefly confined to the woods. There his harsh squeak, for he has no song, is occasionally heard above most others. He also visits the orchard; is equally fond of bees; but wants the courage and magnanimity of the King-bird. He arrives in Pennsylvania early in May, and builds his nest in a hollow tree deserted by the Blue-bird or Wood-pecker. The materials of which this is formed are scanty, and rather novel. One of these nests, now before me, is formed of a little loose hay, feathers of the Guinea fowl, hog's bristles, pieces of cast snake skins, and dogs' hair. Snake skins with this bird appear to be an indispensable article, for I have never yet found one of his nests without this material forming a part of it. Whether he surrounds his nest with this by way of terrorem, to prevent other birds or animals from entering; or whether it be that he finds its silky softness suitable for his young, is uncertain; the fact however is notorious. The female lays four eggs of a dull cream colour thickly scratched with purple lines of various tints as if done with a pen. See fig. 2. VOL. II.-м m This species is eight inches and a half long, and thirteen inches in extent; the upper parts are of a dull greenish olive; the feathers on the head are pointed, centered with dark brown, ragged at the sides, and form a kind of blowzy crest; the throat and upper parts of the breast delicate ash; rest of the lower parts a sulphur yellow; the wing coverts are pale drab, crossed with two bars of dull white; the primaries are of a bright ferruginous or sorrel colour; the tail is slightly forked, its interior vanes of the same bright ferruginous as the primaries; the bill is blackish, very much like that of the King-bird, furnished also with bristles; the eye is hazel; legs and feet bluish black. The female can scarcely be distinguished, by its colours, from the male. This bird also feeds on berries towards the end of summer, particularly on huckle-berries, which, during the time they last, seem to form the chief sustenance of the young birds. I have observed this species here as late as the tenth of September; rarely later. They do not, to my knowledge, winter in any of the southern states. PEWIT FLYCATCHER. [Plate XIII.-Fig. 4.] BARTRAM, p. 289.-Black-cap Flycatcher, LATH. Syn. II, 353.Phoebe Flycatcher, Ibid. Sup. p. 173.-Le gobe-mouche noiratre de la Caroline, BUFF. iv, 541.—Arct. Zool. p. 387, No. 269.— PEALE'S Museum, No. 6618. THIS well-known bird is one of our earliest spring visitants, arriving in Pennsylvania about the first week in March, and continuing with us until October. I have seen them here as late as the twelfth of November. In the month of February I overtook these birds lingering in the low swampy woods of North and South Carolina. They were feeding on smilax berries and chanting occasionally their simple notes. The favourite resort of this bird is by streams of water, under, or near bridges, in caves, &c. Near such places he sits on a projecting twig, calling out pe-wee, pe-wit-titee pe-wee, for a whole morning; darting after insects, and returning to the same twig; frequently flirting his tail, like the wagtail, though not so rapidly. He begins to build about the twentieth or twenty-fifth of March, on some projecting part under a bridge—in a cave—in an open well five or six feet down among the interstices of the side walls-often under a shed-in the low eaves of a cottage, and such like places. The outside is composed of mud mixed with moss; is generally large and solid; and lined with flax and horse hair. The eggs are five, pure white, with two or three dots of red near the great end. See fig. 4. I have known them rear three broods in one season. In a particular part of Mr. Bartram's woods, with which I am acquainted, by the side of a small stream, in a cave, five or six + Muscicapa fusca, GMEL. I, p. 931.—Lath. Ind. Orn. 11, p. 483. |