The king-bird seldom more than dogs
the hawk, keeping above and between his wings, and making a great ado;
but my correspondent says he once "saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's
back. The hawk flew as fast as possible, and the king-bird sat upon
his shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight,"--tweaking
his feathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the next moment.
That near relative of the king-bird, the great crested fly-catcher,
has one well known peculiarity: he appears never to consider his nest
finished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. My alert
correspondent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion skin and make
off with it, either deceived by it or else thinking it a good
substitute for the coveted material.
One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon the nest of a
whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest,--two
elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My foot
was within a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I wondered what
a sharp eye would detect curious or characteristic in the ways of the
bird, so I came to the place many times and had a look.
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