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He took them quite modestly, assuring them that he had done nothing, nothing at all, but that he didn't intend to have any of the Hawk family around the Old Orchard while he lived there. Peter couldn't help but admire Scrapper for his courage. As Peter looked up at Scrapper he saw that, like all the rest of the flycatchers, there was just the tiniest of hooks on the end of his bill.
The vireos, or greenlets, are a sort of connecting link between the warblers and the true flycatchers, and partake of the characteristics of both. The red-eyed vireo, whose sweet soliloquy is one of the most constant and cheerful sounds in our woods and groves, is perhaps the most noticeable and abundant species.
The absence of all birds of prey, and the great number of flies and insects, both the result of the proximity to the village, are considerations which ho hawk-fearing, peace-loving minstrel passes over lightly; hence the popularity of the resort. But the crowning glory of all these robins, flycatchers, and warblers is the wood thrush.
But the most conspicuous birds I saw were members of the family of tyrant flycatchers, of which our own king-bird is the most familiar example. This family is very numerously represented in Argentina, both in species and individuals. Some of the species are so striking, both in color and habits, and in one case also in shape, as to attract the attention of even the unobservant.
As might have been foreseen, Franconia proved to be an excellent place in which to study the difficult family of flycatchers. The phoebe-like cry of the traill was to be heard constantly from the hotel piazza.
Some of the sparrows still sing, and occasionally across the hot fields, from a tall tree in the edge of the forest, comes the rich note of the scarlet tanager. This tropical-colored bird loves the hottest weather, and I hear him even in dog-days. The remainder of the summer is the carnival of the swallows and flycatchers.
When I reached out my hand and carefully closed it around the winged sleeper, its sudden terror and consternation almost paralyzed it. Then it struggled and cried piteously, and when released hastened and hid itself in some near bushes. I never expected to surprise it thus a second time. The flycatchers are a larger group than the vireos, with stronger-marked characteristics.
Now and then little troops of birds of many kinds passed wood-hewers, ant-thrushes, tanagers, flycatchers; as in the spring and fall similar troops of warblers, chickadees, and nuthatches pass through our northern woods. On the rocks and on the great trees by the river grew beautiful white and lilac orchids, the sobralia, of sweet and delicate fragrance.
When a covey of quail is flushed, occasionally two birds will collide, at times meeting with such force that both are stunned. Flycatchers darting at the same insect will now and then come together, but not hard enough to injure either bird. Even the smallest and most wonderful of all flyers, the hummingbird, may come to grief in accidental ways.
In the Patagonia thickets the small tit-like creeper, Laptas-thenura, is the prime mover; and after a considerable number of these have gathered, creepers of other species and genera unite with them, and finally the band, as it moves through the thickets, draws to itself other kinds flycatchers, finches, &c. many of the birds running or hopping on the ground to search for insects in the loose soil or under dead leaves, while others explore the thorny bushes.
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