246 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



" The nest of this species is always placed low, and is generally 

 attached to the forks of small twigs. It is neatly and compactly 

 formed of mosses, dried grasses, and fibrous roots, and is carefully 

 lined with hair, and, not unfrequently, a few large feathers. The 

 eggs are from four to six, of a dull-white, spotted with reddish- 

 brown towards the larger end. The male and female sit by turns, 

 and show extreme anxiety for the safety of their eggs or young." 



MYIODIOCTES PUSILLUS. — Bonaparte. 



The Green Black-cap Flycatcher ; Wilson's Black-cap. 



Muscicapa pusilla, Wilson. Am. Cm., III. (1811) 103. 

 Sylvania pusilla, Nuttall. Man., I. {2d ed., 1840) 335. 

 Sylvia Wilsonii, Nuttall. Man., I. (1832) 408. 

 Muscicapa Wilsonii, Audubon. Orn. Biog., II. (1834) 148. 



Description. 



Forehead, line over and around the eye and under parts generally bright-yellow ; 

 upper part olive-green ; a square patch on the crown lustrous-black ; sides of body 

 and cheeks tinged with olive; no white on wings or tail. Female similar; the 

 black of the crown obscured by olive-green. 



Length, four and seventy-five one-hundredths inches; wing, two and twenty- 

 five one-hundredths ; tail, two and thirty one-hundredths inches. 



This bird is another rare species in New England. I 

 have never seen one alive, and know nothing of its habits. 

 Aububon, who met with a number of individuals, says of 

 its habits : — 



" It has all the habits of a true Flycatcher, feeding on small 

 insects, which it catches entirely on the wing, snapping its bill with 

 a smart clicking sound. It frequents the borders of the lakes, and 

 such streams as are fringed with low bushes, from which it is seen 

 every moment sallying forth, pursuing its insect prey for many 

 yards at a time, and again throwing itself into its favorite thickets. 



" The nest is placed on the extremity of a small horizontal 

 branch, among the thick foliage of dwarf firs, not more than from 

 three to five feet from the ground, and in the centre of the thickets 

 of these trees so common in Labrador. The materials of which it 

 is composed are bits of dry moss and delicate pine twigs, aggluti- 

 nated together and to the branches or leaves around it, and beneath 



