In their migrations their flight is graceful, easy, and continued, and is performed at a considerable height.
It is unfortunate for the horticulturist that this bird has done so much to merit his prejudices and reprobation, and that he does not appreciate to the full the immense services it renders to him each spring in the destruction of injurious insects. A flock of these birds will, in a short space of time, devour an immense number of the larvæ of the destructive canker-worms (Phalænæ) that infest the apples and elms of Massachusetts, and, if permitted, would soon greatly reduce their numbers. But these prejudices cannot be softened by their good deeds, and the Cherry-Bird is still hunted and destroyed.
Their nests are usually constructed late in June or early in July, and are placed in various positions, sometimes in a low bush or tree not more than three or four feet from the ground, and rarely more than twenty. Their nests are large and bulky, but strongly made of various materials. Generally they build a strong external framework, six or seven inches in diameter,
composed of the ends of twigs, coarse stems of vegetables, and grasses. Within this they build a compact, well-made fabric of grasses, grapevine bark, and other finer substances, lining the whole with leaves and fine root-fibres. The cavity is large and deep for the bird. The parents are fourteen days in incubating before the young are hatched out, and all this while are remarkably silent, hardly uttering a sound, even their faintest lisping note, when the nest is meddled with, though they evince great anxiety by their fearless indifference to their own danger.
The eggs, usually five, sometimes six, in number, have a marked resemblance to those of the Waxwing, but are smaller. Their ground-color varies from a light slate-color to a deep shade of stone-color, tinged with olive. These are marked with blotches of a dark purplish-brown, almost black, lighter shades of a dark purple, and penumbræ of faint purple, sometimes by themselves or surrounding and continuing the darker spots. They vary in length from .80 to .88 of an inch, and average about .85. In breadth they are from .60 to .70 of an inch, and in shape they differ also from an oblong-oval to one of a quite rounded form.
Nests of these birds from the Arctic regions are more elaborately built and more warmly lined, being often largely made up of the fine dark-colored lichens that cover the forest trees of those regions.
Subfamily PTILOGONATINÆ.
Char. Legs moderate. Nostrils oval, with wide naked membrane above and to some extent behind them; the frontal feathers not reaching to their border, and rather soft. Wings graduated, shorter than the somewhat broad, fan-shaped tail; the first quill nearly half the second. Adults plain.
Although we find it convenient for the present to retain the genera Ptilogonys and Myiadestes in the same subfamily, there seems little doubt that they belong to very different families, the latter being more properly placed in Turdidæ, as shown in Rev. Am. Birds. It is not necessary that the subject be discussed here, however, and we merely give the diagnosis of the two groups of which these genera are the types respectively:—
Ptilogonateæ. Tarsi scutellate anteriorly; not longer than middle toe and claw.