A History of North American Birds, Land Birds. Volume 2

On the 8th of August, 1832, Mr. Audubon, in company with Mr. Nuttall, obtained the specimen of this species in Brookline, Mass., from which his drawing was made. In the course of his journey farther east, Audubon found it in Maine, on the Magdeleine Islands, and on the coast of Labrador. He afterwards met with it in Texas.

Mr. Boardman reports the Olive-sided Flycatcher as having of late years been very abundant during the summer in the dead woods about the lakes west of Calais, where formerly they were quite uncommon. Mr. Verrill mentions it as a summer visitant in Oxford County, in the western part of the State, but not very common, and as undoubtedly breeding there. It was never observed there before the 20th of May. It is said to be more abundant at Lake Umbagog.

In Western Massachusetts Mr. Allen regards this bird as a not very rare summer visitant. It arrives about May 12, breeds in high open woods, and is seldom seen at any distance from them. It leaves about the middle of September.

Mr. William Brewster, who resides in Cambridge, in the neighborhood in which this species was first observed by Mr. Nuttall, informs me that these birds still continue to be found in that locality. He has himself met with five or six of their nests, all of which were placed near the extremity of some long horizontal branch, usually that of a pitch-pine, but on one occasion in that of an apple-tree. The eggs were laid about the 15th of June, in only one instance earlier. The females were very restless, and left their nest long before he had reached it, and, sitting on some dead branch continually uttered, in a complaining tone, notes resembling the syllables pill-pill-pill, occasionally varying to pu-pu-pu. The males were fierce and quarrelsome, and attacked indiscriminately everything that came near their domain, sometimes seeming even to fall out with their mates, fighting savagely with them for several seconds. When incubation was at all far advanced, the birds evinced considerable courage, darting down to within a few inches of his head, if he approached their nest, at the same time loudly snapping their bills.

A nest of this Flycatcher was found in Lynn, Mass., by Mr. George O. Welch, in June, 1858. It was built on the top of a dead cedar, and contained three eggs. It was a flat, shallow structure, five inches in its external diameter, and with a very imperfectly defined cavity. The greatest depth was less than half an inch. It was coarsely and loosely built of strips of the bark and fine twigs of the red cedar, roots, mosses, dry grasses, etc. The nest was so shallow, that, in climbing to it, two of the eggs were rolled out and broken.

Mr. Charles S. Paine has found this bird breeding in Randolph, Vt. On one occasion he found its nest on the top of a tall hemlock-tree, but was not able to get to it.

In Philadelphia, Mr. Trumbull found this species very rare. It passed north early in May, and south in September. Near Hamilton, Canada, it is very rare, none having been seen; and two specimens obtained near Toronto are all that Mr. McIlwraith is aware of having been taken in Canada West.

Dr. Hoy informs me that this species used to be quite common near Racine, frequenting the edges of thick woods, where they nested. They have now become quite scarce. Some years since, he found one of their nests, just abandoned by the young birds, which their parents were engaged in feeding. It was on the horizontal branch of a maple, and was composed wholly of usneæ.

In Washington Territory this bird appears to be somewhat more common than in other portions of the United States. Dr. Suckley obtained a specimen at Fort Steilacoom, July 10, 1856. It was not very abundant about Puget Sound, and showed a preference for shady thickets and dense foliage, where it was not easily shot. Dr. Cooper speaks of it as very common, arriving early in May and frequenting the borders of woods, where, stationed on the tops of tall dead trees, it repeats a loud and melancholy cry throughout the day, during the whole of summer. It frequents small pine groves along the coast, and also in the interior, and remains until late in September.

In California Dr. Cooper found this species rather common in the Coast Range towards Santa Cruz, where they had nests in May; but as these were built in high inaccessible branches, he was not able to examine them. He also found it at Lake Tahoe in September.

This species was only met with by Mr. Ridgway in the pine woods high up on the East Humboldt, Wahsatch, and Uintah Mountains. There it was breeding, but was nowhere abundant, not more than two pairs being observed within an area of several miles. They preferred the rather open pine woods, and were shot from the highest branches. Their common note was a mellow puer, much like one of the whistling notes of the Cardinal Grosbeak (Cardinalis virginianus).

Mr. Dresser states it to be not uncommon near San Antonio in the winter season. Dr. Heermann mentions that two specimens of this species were obtained, to his knowledge, on the Cosumnes River, in California. It has been taken in winter, in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, by Mr. Boucard, and has been met with at Jalapa, and even as far south as Guatemala.

A single specimen of this bird was taken, August 29, 1840, at Nenortalik, Greenland, and sent to Copenhagen.

The eggs of this species measure .86 of an inch in length by .62 in breadth, and are rounded at one end and sharply tapering at the other. The ground-color is a rich cream-color with a roseate tint. They are beautifully marked around the larger end with a ring of confluent spots of lilac, purple, and red-brown. These vary in number and in the size of this crown, but the markings are invariably about the larger end, as in Contopus virens.

Contopus pertinax, Cabanis & HeineMEXICAN OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER

Contopus pertinax, Cab. et Hein. Mus. Hein. II, p. 72.—Sclater, Catal. Am. B. 1862, 231.—Coues, Pr. Ac. Phil. 1866, 60.—Elliot, Illust. B. Am. I, pl. viii.—Cooper, Geol. Surv. Calif. Orn. I, 324.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 324. Contopus borealis, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1858, 301; 1859, 43; Ibis, 1859, 122, 440.

Sp. Char. Nearly uniformly olive-gray, lighter on the throat and abdominal region, where is a strong tinge of ochraceous-yellow; feathers of the wings with faintly lighter edges. Length about 8.00; wing, 4.45; tail, 3.90; depth of its fork, .35; culmen, .92; tarsus, .70. Rictal bristles long, about half the bill; lower mandible whitish. Young. Similar, but with a stronger ochraceous tinge on the abdomen and lining of the wings, and two distinct ochraceous bands across the wing.

Hab. Mexico generally, into southern borders of United States (Fort Whipple, Arizona; Dr. Coues).

Habits. Dr. Coues found this species a rare summer resident at Fort Whipple, where a single specimen was taken August 20, in good plumage. This was its first introduction into the fauna of the United States. It is one of several Mexican and peninsular birds found in Upper Arizona, probably following the course of the valley of the Great Colorado River. No observations were made in reference to its habits.

This species is abundant in the Department of Vera Cruz, according to Mr. Sumichrast, who gives it as confined to the alpine region. He found both it and C. virens common in the mountains of Orizaba, between the height of 3,600 and 7,500 feet.

Contopus virens, CabanisWOOD PEWEE

Muscicapa virens, Linn. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 327.—Gmelin, Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 936.—Latham, Index Orn.—Licht. Verz. 1823, 563.—Nuttall, Man. I, 1832, 285.—Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 93; V, 1839, 425, pl. cxv.—Ib. Synopsis, 1839, 42.—Ib. Birds Am. I, 1840, 231, pl. lxiv.—Giraud, Birds L. Island, 1844, 43. Muscicapa querula, Vieillot, Ois. Am. Sept. I, 1807, 68, pl. xxxix (not of Wilson). Muscicapa rapax, Wilson, Am. Orn. II, 1810, 81, pl. xiii, f. 5. Tyrannula virens, Rich. App. Back’s Voyage.—Bonap. List, 1838. Myiobius virens, Gray. Tyrannus virens, Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 316. Contopus virens, Cabanis, Journal für Ornithologie, III, Nov. 1855, 479.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 190.—Sclater, Catal. 1862, 231.—Samuels, 137.

Sp. Char. The second quill longest; the third a little shorter; the first shorter than the fourth; the latter nearly .40 longer than the fifth. The primaries more than an inch longer than the secondaries. The upper parts, sides of the head, neck, and breast, dark olivaceous-brown, the latter rather paler, the head darker. A narrow white ring round the eye. The lower parts pale yellowish, deepest on the abdomen; across the breast tinged with ash. This pale ash sometimes occupies the whole of the breast, and even occasionally extends up to the chin. It is also sometimes glossed with olivaceous. The wings and tail dark brown; generally deeper than in S. fuscus. Two narrow bands across the wing, the outer edge of first primary and of the secondaries and tertials, dull white. The edges of the tail-feathers like the back; the outer one scarcely lighter. Upper mandible black; the lower yellow, but brown at the tip. Length, 6.15; wing, 3.50; tail, 3.05.

Hab. Eastern North America to the borders of the high Central Plains. Localities: ? Guatemala (Scl. Ibis, I, 122); Mexico (Scl. Ibis, I, 441); Cuba? (Cab. J. III, 479; Gundl. Rep. 1865, 239); Costa Rica (Cab. J. 1861, 248; Lawr. IX, 115); Coban (Scl. List); Vera Cruz, alpine region, breeds (Sum. M. Bost. Soc. I, 557); San Antonio, Texas and Eastern Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 474, breeds).

Young birds are duller in plumage; the whitish markings of wing tinged with ferruginous; the lower mandible more dusky.

Habits. The common Wood Pewee of eastern North America occurs in abundance from the Atlantic to the great plains, and from Texas to New Brunswick. It breeds from South Carolina and Texas north. It is found in Central and Southern Maine, but is not so abundant as it is farther south. It is found near St. Stephens, N. B., and breeds in that vicinity, but is not common. It is a summer visitant at Norway, Me., but Professor Verrill states that it is much less common than in Massachusetts, where it arrives the last of May. At Hamilton, in Canada, Mr. McIlwraith records this species as abundant in the summer, arriving there the middle of May. I am not aware of its having been taken north of the 45th parallel of latitude, with the exception of one at Red River, Minnesota, and another at Fort William by Mr. Kennicott. It is said by Dr. Coues to be a summer resident of South Carolina from the middle of April to the middle of October, and Mr. Dresser states that he found it very common in the wooded river-bottoms near San Antonio during the summer, not arriving there until late in April or early in May. Their call-note, he states, is a low prolonged whistle. Their stomachs were found to contain minute coleopterous insects. Dr. Woodhouse also speaks of it as common in Texas and in the Indian Territory. In the Department of Vera Cruz, Mr. Sumichrast found this species, as well as the Contopus pertinax, common in the mountains of Orizaba, between the height of 3,600 and 7,500 feet.

In Pennsylvania, Wilson states that the Wood Pewee is the latest of the summer birds in arriving, seldom coming before the 12th or 15th of May. He found it frequenting the shady high-timbered woods, where there is little underwood and an abundance of dead twigs and branches. It was generally found in low situations. He adds that it builds its nest on the upper side of a limb or branch, formed outwardly of moss and lined with various soft materials, and states that the female lays five white eggs, and that the brood leave the nest about the middle of June. Probably the last statement is correct as applied to Pennsylvania, but the intimation as to the color of the egg and some of the characteristics of the nest is so inaccurate as to make it doubtful whether Wilson could have ever seen the nest for himself.

This species, like all its family, is a very expert catcher of insects, even the most minute, and has a wonderfully quick perception of their near presence, even when the light of day has nearly gone and in the deep gloom of thick woods. It takes its station on the end of a low dead limb, from which it darts out in quest of insects, sometimes for a single individual, which it seizes with a peculiar snap of its bill; and, frequently meeting insect after insect, it keeps up a constant snapping sound as it passes on, and finally returns to its post to resume its watch. During this watch it occasionally is heard to utter a low twitter, with a quivering movement of the wings and tail, and more rarely to enunciate a louder but still feeble call-note, sounding like pēē-ē. These notes are continued until dark, and are also uttered throughout the season.

Mr. Nuttall states that this species at times displays a tyrannical disposition, and that it has been observed to chase a harmless Sparrow to the ground, because it happened to approach his station for collecting insects.

According to Mr. Audubon, some of these birds spend the winter months in the extreme Southern States, Louisiana and Florida, where they feed upon berries as well as insects.

In Massachusetts the Wood Pewee is a very abundant species, and may usually be found in any open woods, or in an orchard of large spreading trees. In the latter situation it frequently breeds. It usually selects a lower dead limb of a tree, from ten to thirty feet from the ground, and occasionally, but more seldom, a living moss-grown branch. It always chooses one that is covered with small lichens, and saddles its nest upon its upper surface, so closely assimilated by its own external coating of lichens as not to be distinguishable from a natural protuberance on the limb. This structure is extremely beautiful, rivalling even the artistic nests of the Humming-Bird. It is cup-shaped, and a perfect segment of a sphere in shape. The periphery of the nest is made of fine root fibres, small lichens, and bits of cobwebs and other similar materials. The outer sides are entirely covered with a beautiful coating of mosses and lichens, glued to the materials with the saliva of the builder. The eggs are usually four in number, measure .78 of an inch in length and .55 in breadth. They are obtuse at one end and tapering at the other, have a ground of a rich cream-color, and are marked about the larger end with a wreath of blended purple, lilac, and red-brown in large and confluent spots. They hatch about the middle of June, leave the nest in July, and have but a single brood.

A nest of this species, taken in Lynn by Mr. Welch, and built on the dead branch of a forest tree, has a diameter of three and a height of one and a half inches. The cavity has a depth of one inch, and a diameter, at the rim, of two and a half inches. The base is flattened by its position. Its walls are strongly woven of fine dry stems, intermingled with vegetable down, covered externally with lichens, cemented to the exterior, apparently by the secretions of the bird. The base is thinner, and made of softer materials.

During the winter months this species is present as a migrant in various parts of Mexico, south to Guatemala.

Contopus virens, var. richardsoni, BairdSHORT-LEGGED PEWEE; WESTERN WOOD PEWEE

Tyrannula richardsoni, Swainson, F. Bor.-Am. II, 1831, 146, plate. Muscicapa richardsoni, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 299, pl. ccccxxxiv. Tyrannula phœbe, Bon. List, 1838, 24. Muscicapa phœbe, Audubon, Synopsis, 1839, 42.—Ib. Birds Am. I, 1840, 219, pl. lxi (not of Latham). Tyrannus phœbe, Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 319. Tyrannus atriceps, D’Orbigny (fide G. R. Gray). Contopus richardsoni, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 189.—Sclater, Catal. 1862, 231.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 325. Contopus sordidulus, Sclater, Catal. 1862, 231. Contopus plebeius, (Caban.) Sclater, Cat. 1862, 231. Contopus bogotensis, (Bonap.) Sclater, P. Z. S. 1858, 459. (Tyrannula b. Bonap. Comp. Rend. p. 196.)

Sp. Char. General appearance of C. virens. Bill broad. Wings very long and much pointed, considerably exceeding the tail; second quill longest; third a little shorter; first shorter than fourth, and about midway between distance from second to fifth (.60 of an inch). Primaries 1.20 inches longer than secondaries. Tail moderately forked. Above dark olive-brown (the head darker); the entire breast and sides of head, neck, and body of a paler shade of the same, tingeing strongly also the dull whitish throat and chin. Abdomen and under tail-coverts dirty pale-yellowish. Quills and tail dark blackish-brown; the secondaries narrowly, the tertials more broadly edged with whitish. Two quite indistinct bands of brownish-white across the wings. Lower mandible yellow; the tip brown. Length, 6.20; wing, 3.65; tail, 3.10.

Hab. High central dry plains to the Pacific; Rio Grande Valley, southward to Mexico; Labrador (Audubon). Localities: Orizaba, Guatemala, Coban (Scl. Catal. 1862, 231); Costa Rica (Lawr. IX, 115); Matamoras, Texas (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 474, breeds); San Antonio, Texas (Dresser, one spec.); W. Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 61).

This species has a very close relationship to C. virens, agreeing with it in general shape of wings and in color. The wings are, however, still longer and more pointed; the primaries exceeding the secondaries by nearly 1.25 inches. The proportions of the quills are nearly the same in both; the primaries, too, are similarly a little emarginated or attenuated towards the end. The tail is rather more deeply forked, the feathers broader. The bills are similar; the feet are larger and stouter.

The general colors are almost precisely the same. The outer primary, however, lacks the decidedly white margin. The under parts are much darker anteriorly, the entire breast being nearly a uniform olive-brown, but little paler than the back; the throat, too, in some specimens, being scarcely paler. There is little or none of the pale sulphur-yellow of C. virens on the abdomen, and the under wing-coverts and axillaries are much darker olivaceous. In C. virens the middle line of the breast is always paler than the sides, or at least the connecting space is short.

The lower mandible is generally yellow; in a few specimens, however, it is quite dusky, especially on its terminal half.

The young bird has the darker head and broader light edgings, with the ferruginous tinge on the wing-markings, usually seen in young of the Tyrannulas.

A large series shows considerable variations; autumnal specimens have a more appreciable tinge of yellow on the lower parts, while summer individuals are more grayish.

Habits. This species was first obtained by Richardson in the Arctic regions, and described by Swainson. It was found in the neighborhood of the Cumberland House, where it frequented moist shady woods by the banks of rivers and lakes. It was supposed likely to travel in summer as far as the shores of the Great Slave Lake.

Since its discovery by Richardson, this Flycatcher has been found to have a widely extended geographical range, as far to the south as Guatemala, and even Panama, and northward as far as the 60th parallel of latitude, and from the great plains to the Pacific.

During the survey of the Mexican Boundary, specimens of this bird were obtained by Mr. J. H. Clark in El Paso, Texas, and in the month of May by Lieutenant Couch in Monterey, Mexico.

Mr. Dresser found that this bird was very common near Matamoras during the summer, and that they were breeding there. He also shot one specimen near San Antonio in May. Its stomach contained small insects. Dr. Coues thinks this Flycatcher an exceedingly abundant summer resident in the Territory of Arizona. It arrives there in spring about the first of May, the latest of the Flycatchers, and is deemed by the Doctor a counterpart of the eastern Contopus virens. It departs from that Territory about the third week in September. It is found in all situations, but most especially in open forests.

This species arrives in California, according to Dr. Cooper, at least a fortnight earlier than the date of its earliest advent in Arizona as given by Dr. Coues, or about the 15th of April, and spends its summers in the most mountainous parts of the State. It is said to perch mainly on the lower dead limbs, watching for the passing insects, uttering occasionally a plaintive pe-ah. It is usually very silent, and seems to prefer the dark, solitary recesses of the forests.

Dr. Hoy informs me that this Flycatcher is occasionally found in the neighborhood of Racine, but that it is rare. It keeps in the deep forest, and never comes near dwellings in the manner of C. virens.

This bird was found breeding at Fort Tejon by Mr. Xantus, at Napa Valley by Mr. A. J. Grayson, and both in the Sacramento Valley and at Parley’s Park, among the Wahsatch Mountains, by Mr. Ridgway.

A nest of this bird in the Smithsonian Museum (10,076) from California, collected by W. Vuille, had been apparently saddled on the limb of a tree, in the manner of C. virens, having a broad flattened base, and a general resemblance to the nests of that species. It differs, however, somewhat in regard to materials, and most especially in having no lichens attached to the exterior. It has a diameter of three inches and a height of one and a half. The cavity is about one inch deep and two wide at the rim. The base and sides of this nest are largely composed of the exuviæ of chrysalides, intermingled with hemp-like fibres of plants, stems, and fine dry grasses. The rim is firmly wrought of strong wiry stems, and a large portion of the inner nest is of the same material. The whole is warmly and thoroughly lined with the soft fine hair of small quadrupeds and with vegetable fibres.

According to Mr. Ridgway, this is the most abundant and generally diffused of all the Tyrannuli of the Great Basin, as well as of California. It inhabits every grove of the lowest valleys, as well as the highest aspen copses on the mountains in the alpine region, and breeds abundantly in all these places. Resembling the eastern C. virens in its general habits, its appearance, and its every motion, it yet differs most widely from it in notes, the common one being a disagreeable weird squeak, very unlike the sad, wailing, but not unpleasant one of the eastern Wood Pewee. Mr. Ridgway relates that having shot a female bird, and taken her nest and eggs, he was surprised, a few days afterwards, to find the male with another mate, and a new nest built in precisely the same spot from which the other had been taken. Upon climbing to the nest, it was found to contain one egg; and the parents exhibited very unusual distress. When visited two or three days after, it was found to be deserted and the egg broken.

The eggs, three in number, measure .69 of an inch in length and .53 in breadth. They have a ground of beautiful cream-color slightly tinged with a roseate tint, surrounded at the larger end with a wreath of purple and reddish-brown spots. A few smaller markings are sparingly distributed, but nearly all are about the larger end.

Genus EMPIDONAX, Cabanis

Empidonax, Cabanis, Journal für Ornithologie, III, Nov. 1855, 480. (Type, Tyrannula pusilla.) Tyrannula of most authors.

Empidonax acadicus.

1225

Gen. Char. Tarsus lengthened, considerably longer than the bill, and exceeding the middle toe, which is decidedly longer than the hind toe. Bill variable. Tail very slightly forked, even, or rounded; a little shorter only than the wings, which are considerably rounded; the first primary much shorter than the fourth. Head moderately crested. Color olivaceous above, yellowish beneath; throat generally gray.

The lengthened tarsi, the short toes, the short and rounded wings, and the plain dull olivaceous of the plumage, readily distinguish the species of this genus from any other North American Flycatchers. The upper plates of the tarsi in a good many species do not encircle the outside, but meet there a row on the posterior face.

There are few species of North American birds more difficult to distinguish than the small Flycatchers, the characters, though constant, being very slight and almost inappreciable, except to a very acute observer.