assed by some writers as screechers. Their pugnacious
dispositions are well known, and they not only fight among themselves,
but are incessantly quarreling with their neighbors. The kingbird, or
tyrant flycatcher might serve as the type of the order.

The common or wood pewee excites the most pleasant emotions, both on
account of its plaintive note and its exquisite mossy nest.

The phoebe-bird is the pioneer of the flycatchers, and comes in April,
sometimes in March. Its comes familiarly about the house and
outbuildings, and usually builds beneath hay-sheds or under bridges.

The flycatchers always take their insect prey on the wing, by a sudden
darting or swooping movement; often a very audible snap of the beak
may be heard.

These birds are the least elegant, both in form and color, of any of
our feathered neighbors. They have short legs, a short neck, large
heads, and broad, flat beaks, with bristles at the base. They often
fly with a peculiar quivering movement of the wings, and when at rest
some of the species oscillate their tails at short intervals.

There are found in the United States nineteen species. In the Middle
and Eastern districts, one may observe in summer, without any special
search, about five of them, namely, the kingbird, the phoebe-bird, the
wood pewee, the great crested flycatcher (distinguished from all
others by the bright ferruginous color of its tail), and the small
green-crested flycatcher.

The thrushes are the birds of real melody, and will afford one more
delight perhaps than any other class. The robin is the most familiar
example. Their manners, flight, and form are the same in each species.
See the robin hop along upon the ground, strike an attitude, scratch
for a worm, fix his eye upon something before him or upon the
beholder, flip his wings suspiciously, fly straight to his perch, or
sit at sundown on some high branch caroling his sweet and honest
strain, and you have seen what is characteristic of all the thrushes.
Their carriage is preeminently marked by grace, and their songs by
melody.

Beside the robin, which is in no sense a woodbird, we have in New York
the wood thrush, the hermit thrush, the veery, or Wilson's thrush, the
olive-backed thrush, and, transiently, one or two other species not so
clearly defined.

The wood thrush and the hermit stand at the head as songsters, no two
persons, perhaps, agreeing as to which is the superior.

Under the general head of finch