Mar., 1915 ADAPTABILITY IN THE CHOICE O1? NESTING SITES 69 barbed wire fence is spotted with pieces of wool torn from passing flocks), and lined with hair and feathers. Always loosely built, the nest appeared to depend on the rigidity of its support for protection from blowing down, rather than on firm attachment to its support. More nests were placed in a three or four branched fork against the trunk of the tree than in any other situa- tion. Such a location appeared entireIy safe against wind. Except in the case of the Eastern Kingbird, no attempts at concealing the nest seemed to be made. The Arkansas Kingbird, especially, seemed to desire rather than con- cealment a nest in an exposed place, where it could alight easily, untroubled by foliage. This latter desideratum is probably. one of the factors figuring in the Kingbirds' use of electric poles and hay-derricks as nesting sites. Fig. 21. AN ARKANSAS KINGBIRD'S NEST ON A TELEPHONE POLE The use of a box for a nest, as in figure 19, made me think that perhaps Kingbirds could be encouraged to nest near dwellings, and so the following year I nailed an open box on the top of my barn. A pair of Kingbirds hung about it one day, but paid no further attention to it. To sum up, the Arkansas Kingbird seems to prefer as a nesting site a fork near the trunk or a main limb of a large tree, such a site being from fifteen to forty feet above the ground, and exposed or easily accessible on the wing. Because of the abundance of natural food in the newly irrigated sections, the Kingbirds have entered these areas from their previous haunts among the cottonwoods of the watercourses and have adapted their method of nesting to the treeless conditions. In the very new districts they have nested on hay-.
