282 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 



OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER, or ' Pe-PE.' 



(Muscicapa * Cooperi, M. inornata, Nobis, Nat. Sci. Philad. et D. 



CoopjERinlitt.) 



Sp. Charact. — Dusky-brown, head darker, without discolored 

 spot ; sides olive-grey ; lateral space beneath the wing white ; 

 lower mandible purplish horn-color; tail nearly even, and extend- 

 ing but little beyond the closed wings ; 2d primary longest. 



This undescribed species, which appertains to the group 

 of Pewees, was obtained in the woods of Sweet Auburn, 

 in this vicinity, by Mr. John Bethune, of Cambridge, on the 

 7th of June, 1830. This, and a second specimen, acquired 

 soon afterwards, were females on the point of incubation. 

 A third individual of the same sex was killed on the 21st 

 of June, 1831. They were all of them fat, and had their 

 stomachs filled with torn fragments of wild bees, wasps, 

 and other similar insects. I have watched the motions 

 of two other living individuals, who appeared tyrannical 

 and quarrelsome even with each other ; the attack was 

 always accompanied with a whirring, querulous twitter. 

 Their dispute was apparently, like that of savages, about 

 the rights of their respective hunting-grounds. One of 

 the birds, the female, whom I usually saw alone, was un- 

 commonly sedentary. The territory she seemed deter- 

 mined to claim was circumscribed by the tops of a 

 cluster of tall Virginia junipers or red cedars, and an 

 adjoining elm, and decayed cherry tree. From this 

 sovereign station, in the solitude of a barren and sandy 

 piece of forest, adjoining Sweet Auburn, she kept a sharp 

 lookout for passing insects, and pursued them with 

 great vigor and success as soon as they appeared, some- 

 times chasing them to the ground, and generally re- 

 suming her perch with an additional mouthful, which she 

 swallowed at leisure. On descending to her station, 

 the occasionally quivered her wings and tail, erected her 



