202 BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND AND EASTERN NEW YORK 



Least Flycatcher ; Chebec. Empidonax minimus 

 5.41 



Ad. — Upper parts olive-green, tinged with brownish; wing- 

 bars ash-white ; under parts whitish, with a slight tinge of yellow 

 on the belly. 



Nest, a neat gray cup, often in a crotch from twenty to thirty 

 feet up. Eggs, white. 



The Chebec is very common throughout New York and 

 New England, except in the less cultivated districts of 

 northern New England and New York, where it is chiefly 

 confined to the villages and the neighborhood of tilled fields, 

 its place being taken in the wilder regions by the Alder 

 Flycatcher. It arrives late in April, and in eastern Massa- 

 chusetts is rarely seen after the end of August. It breeds in 

 apple orchards, edges of woodland, in fact, wherever trees 

 are separated by slight open spaces in which it can hunt. It 

 sits on some fairly exposed perch, in the manner character- 

 istic of flycatchers, and makes constant sallies into the air, 

 down over the grass, or even against the trunks of trees. 



The male in spring and early summer is a constant singer, 

 snapping out the syllables se-bic', with a violent jerk of his 

 head and a quiver of the tail. Both sexes, after alighting, 

 often utter a little gurgling note, and quiver wings and tail. 

 The call-note is wh it. Just before dusk the male often flies 

 up from some tree near the nest, and delivers a flight-song, 

 in which the call-note, whit, and the ordinary song, se-bic' ', 

 are repeated many times. (See also following species.) 



Alder Flycatcher. Empidonax traillii alnorum 

 6.09 



Ad. — Upper parts dark olive-green, often with a tinge of 

 brown ; under parts white, washed with yellowish on the belly • 

 wing-bars broivnish-gray. 



Nest, in crotch of small bush near the ground, made of coarser 

 material than the Chebec's. Eggs, spotted. 



