THE SMALL FLYCATCHERS. 



The old proverb of " a bird in the hand " gets a stiff rebuff 

 among the small flycatchers. To the amateur naturalist, for the 

 purpose of identification, a live flycatcher in the bush, if decently 

 tame and sociable, is worth half a dozen dead ones in the hand. 



Those who know about birds may consider it ill-advised 

 to introduce young beginners to this puzzling group of the 

 little flycatchers ; but the best lesson a novice can learn is 

 to single out the largest lion that lies in his pathway, and, 

 " having killed him, to go on singing.'' The small flycatchers 

 are hard to study, esx)ecially when they are dead and unable 

 to speak for themselves, but as we learn about them we 

 find out a remarkable fact. It is that two birds may have 

 scarcely a feather's difference betwe*^n them, may be so near 

 alike that only experts can determine the differences, and yet 

 may be entirely distinct, so unlike that no one would think 

 of calling them the same species. Much as we sometimes envy 

 the man who shoots little birds his opportunities for looking at 

 every feather, in the case of the little flycatchers the advantage 

 lies all on the side of the man who hunts them without a gun. 

 Their habits are unlike, their haunts are different, their notes are 

 individual, and the nests and eggs vary with each species so that 

 they are identified even more readily than the birds themselves. 



Up to a certain point no bird is easier to determine than a 

 flycatcher. As far off as you can see or hear him you know 

 his ways and his voice. At one hundred and ten measured 

 feet I have been able, without a glass, to recognize a phoebe 

 merely by the way he sat on a limb, and after a little experi- 

 ence any one can readily pick out a flycatcher when no one 



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