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I have stated that all migrations of gossamers I have witnessed have been in the autumn; excepting in one instance, these flights occurred when the weather was still hot and dry. The exceptionally late migration was on March 22 a full month after the departure of martins, humming-birds, flycatchers, and most other true bird-migrants.
Here, every day, were to be heard the glorious song of the cardinal grosbeak, the insect-like effort of the blue-gray gnatcatcher, and the rigmarole of the yellow-breasted chat. On a wooded hillside, where grew a profusion of trailing arbutus, pink azalea, and bird-foot violets, the rowdyish, great-crested flycatchers were screaming in the tree-tops.
Toward the end of the month, when the gelatinous masses in the water courses have developed the little black dots sufficiently so that we can see they are tadpoles, when the songsters have been joined by the catbird, the rose-breasted grosbeak, the woodthrush, the whippoorwill, the cheerful and friendly chewink and several of the warblers and flycatchers, the rivers and creeks will be fringed with the brilliant yellow of the marsh marigold, and we shall think of Shakespeare, walking the meadows of Avon, getting material for that song of the musicians in Cymbeline: And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes.
The warblers and smaller flycatchers are generally the sufferers, though I sometimes see the slate-colored snowbird unconsciously duped in like manner; and the other day, in a tall tree in the woods, I discovered the black-throated green-backed warbler devoting itself to this dusky, over-grown foundling.
Of the common flycatchers of the Western Himalayas, the following occur in the Eastern Himalayas: 41. Stoparola melanops. The verditer flycatcher. Very common at Darjeeling. Cyornis superciliaris. The white-browed blue-flycatcher. Alseonax latirostris. The brown flycatcher. Not very common. Niltava sundara. The rufous-bellied niltava. Very abundant at Darjeeling.
The flies are more intelligent than the bees because their problems of life are much more complicated; they are fraught with many more dangers; their enemies lurk on all sides; while the bees have very few natural enemies. There are no bee-catchers in the sense that there are scores of flycatchers. I know of no bird that preys upon the worker bees.
Davidson gives these mynas a very bad character, he declares that they do immense damage to the fruit gardens on the Nilgiris, so that without the aid of nets, it is next to impossible to preserve pears from their depredations. No other species of myna is common on the Nilgiris. As in the Himalayas so on the Nilgiris the family of flycatchers is well represented.
Great-crested flycatchers, two Acadian flycatchers, a multitude of blue yellow-backed warblers, and what I supposed to be some loud-voiced frogs were especially conspicuous in the concert; but a Carolina wren, a cardinal, a red-eyed vireo, and a blue-gray gnatcatcher, the last with the merest thread of a voice, contributed their share to the medley, and once a chickadee struck up his sweet and gentle strain in the very depths of the swamp like an angel singing in hell.
There appeared sometimes to be a thousand whispering, squealing, and smacking titmice in the trees over my head, and a whole regiment of great-crested flycatchers and others on one side.
Then the fig blossomed and brought forth its small, red fruit. Myla was fond of the juicy berries; so were the other members of her tribe and the bird hosts including even some of the flycatchers.
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