Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/442

416 of shell-fish, &c. At the approach of the breeding season they separate into pairs, and select the most retired cedar groves for their nesting places, the same couple resorting to a particular spot for many years, if undisturbed. The nest is a bulky structure of slicks and cedar-bark, warmly lined with the latter material and with goats' hair; it is usually in a wide fork, against the trunk, and never very high up. Eggs, usually four, exactly like those of our European Crows. I have found as many as half-a-dozen nests, in various stages of dilapidation, in the same clump of trees—the work, doubtless, of the same pair. They seem invariably to build a fresh one every year. Only one brood appears to be raised, leaving the nest about the end of May. The earliest nest I heard of was one containing four fresh eggs, on April 3rd, 1875. Lieut. Denison and I found five young birds in one nest, two of which were somewhat less advanced in feathering than the remainder; and, as we were mobbed all the time we were at the nest by four old Crows, we came to the conclusion that the nest must be common to both pairs—rather an odd thing, when one considers the solitary breeding habits of the species. Mr. Bartram has a specimen measuring 21½ inches in length, which we at first thought must be a Raven, C. corax, particularly as it did not mix with the other Crows, and was shot on a small island it frequented; but subsequent examination inclined me to believe it was only an unusually large bird, perhaps a little stretched in stuffing—probably the variety C. floridanus of Baird. Ordinary specimens measure 18 to 20 inches.

Tyrannus carolinensis. King Bird; Bee Martin.—Recorded as very numerous in all the swamps in 1850, but not mentioned as occurring at other times, though Mr. Bartram has one or two specimens of a later date. It would appear to be only a spring visitant. A considerable number appeared in April, 1875, a small band of these attaching themselves to the Devonshire and Hungry Bay district, where several specimens, male and female, were obtained. Tliese were all immature, or rather in winter plumage, with the flame-coloured head-patch concealed by black tips to the feathers. [Several were seen by me at Hungry Bay on the 22nd September, 1875. Unfortunately I did not procure a specimen, and so establish the fact of this species visiting Bermuda on its southern journey.—H.D.]

Tyrannus dominicensis, Gray King Bird; Pipiry Flycatcher.—