I have spoken of the broods of the great crested flycatchers that have been reared in the old apple-tree.
This is by no means a common bird, and as it destroys many noxious insects I look upon it with a friendly eye, though it is the most uncouth and unmusical of the flycatchers. Indeed, among the other birds of the garden and orchard it seems quite like a barbarian. It has a harsh, froglike scream, form and manners to suit, and is clad in a suit of butternut brown. It seeks a cast-off snakeskin to weave into its nest, and not finding one, will take an onion skin, a piece of oiled paper, or large fish scales. It builds in a cavity in a tree, rears one brood, and is off early in the season. I never see or hear it after August 1st.
A pair have built in a large, hollow limb in my old apple-tree for many years. Whether it is the same pair or not I do not know. Probably it is, or else some of their descendants. I looked into the cavity one day while the mother bird was upon the nest, but before she had laid any eggs. A sudden explosive sound came up out of the dark depths of the limb, much like that made by an alarmed cat. It made me jerk my head back, when out came the bird and hurried off. For several days I saw no more of the pair, and feared they had deserted the spot. But they had not; they were only more sly than usual. I soon discovered an egg in the nest, and then another and another.
One day, as I stood near by, a male bluebird came along with his mate, prospecting for a spot for a second nest. He alighted at the entrance of this hole and peeped in. Instantly the flycatcher was
upon him. The blue was enveloped by the butternut brown. The two fell to the ground, where the bluebird got away, and in a moment more came back and looked in the hole again, as much as to say, "I will look into that hole now at all hazards." The barbarian made a dash for him again, but he was now on his guard and avoided her.
Not long after, the bluebirds decided to occupy the old cavity of the downy woodpecker from which I had earlier in the season expelled the English sparrows. After they had established themselves here a kind of border war broke out between the male bluebird and the flycatchers, and was kept up for weeks. The bluebird is very jealous and very bold. He will not even tolerate a house wren in the vicinity of his nest. Every bird that builds in a cavity he looks upon as his natural rival and enemy. The flycatchers did not seek any quarrel with him as long as he kept to his own domicile, but he could not tolerate them in the same tree. It was a pretty sight to see this little blue-coat charging the butternut through the trees. The beak of the latter would click like a gunlock, and its harsh, savage voice was full of anger, but the bluebird never flinched, and was always ready to renew the fight.
The English sparrow will sometimes worst the bluebird by getting possession of the box or cavity ahead of him. Once inside, the sparrow can hold the fort, and the bluebird will soon give up the siege; but in a fair field and no favor, the native bird will quickly rout the foreigner.
Speaking of birds that build in cavities reminds me of a curious trait the high-hole has developed in my vicinity, one which I have never noticed or heard of elsewhere. It drills into buildings and steeples and telegraph poles, and in some instances makes itself a serious nuisance. One season the large imitation Greek columns of an unoccupied old-fashioned summer residence near me were badly marred by them. The bird bored into one column, and finding the cavity—a foot or more across—not just what it was looking for, cut into another one, and still into another. Then he bored into the ice-house on the premises, and in the sawdust filling between the outer and inner sheathing found a place to his liking. One bird seemed like a monomaniac, and drilled holes up and down and right and left as if possessed of an evil spirit. It is quite probable that if a high-hole or other woodpecker should go crazy, it would take to just this sort of thing, drilling into seasoned timber till it used its strength up. The one I refer to would cut through a dry hemlock board in a very short time, making the slivers fly. The sound was like that of a carpenter's hammer. It may have been that he was an unmated bird, a bachelor whose suit had not prospered that season, and who was giving vent to his outraged instincts in drilling these mock nesting-places.