Page:Birdcraft-1897.djvu/295

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Flycatchers
SONGLESS BIRDS.

Olive-sided Flycatcher: Contopus borealis.

Length: 7.50 inches.
Male and Female: Dark brown, deepest on head, olive-gray sides. Wings brown, with some white tips. Chin, throat, and centre of breast yellowish white. Bill, black above, yellowish below. Feet black.
Note: "0-wheo, O--wheo, O--wheo!" Season: In migrations; May and September.
Breeds: From higher and mountainous parts of the United States northward.
Nest: Made of small twigs, grass, and fibres; very crude and shapeless; saddled on a high horizontal branch.
Eggs: 4-5, buff-white, spotted thickly with reddish brown.
Range: North America; in winter, south to Central America and Colombia.

The Olive-sided Flycatcher is an irregular migrant, which is sometimes rarest in spring and sometimes in autumn. I think, however, that it is rather plentiful in this neighbour-hood in ear% September, for I have seen it repeatedly with miscellaneous flocks of Flycatchers in the ranks of the early returning migrants.

Wood Pewee: Contopus virens.

Plate42. Fig. 2.

Length: 6-6.50 inches.
Male and Female: Dusky olive-brown above, darkest on head, throat paler, middle of belly yellowish, growing lighter below. White eye ring and two whitish wing bars. Feet and bill dusky or black.
Note: "Pewee-a, -peweed, peer !" -as much a song as that of many birds classified as Song-birds.
Season: May to October.
Breeds: Throughout its range.
Nest: Flat; its evenly rounded edge stuccoed with lichens like that of the Hummingbird; hardly to be distinguished from the bough on which it is saddled.
Eggs: Creamy-white, with a wreath of brown and lilac spots on the larger end.
Range: Eastern North America to the Plains, and from southern Canada southward.

186