198 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The 1931 Check-list states that it "breeds from extreme southwestern 

 British Columbia, northern Washington, central Idaho, and central 

 Wyoming south to northern Lower California, southern New Mex- 

 ico, central Texas, and Durango." It is an abundant summer resi- 

 dent in all suitable localities, "its favorite haunts being the willow- 

 covered islands and the shubbery along water courses, beaver 

 meadows, and the borders of the more open mountain parks ; in such 

 places it sometimes reaches an altitude of 8,000 feet in summer, 

 especially in California, Colorado, and Utah," according to Major 

 Bendire (1895). 



S. F. Kathbun writes to me that the little flycatcher is a common 

 summer resident in western Washington and has a very uniform 

 distribution. "It is a bird of the lowlands, seldom met with at any 

 considerable elevation; and it appears to prefer quite open places 

 more or less overgrown' with shrubs or bracken or both, the location 

 of which is along the margin of a mixed growth of trees, mostly 

 deciduous, with water or low ground not far away. And should 

 any locality of this kind remain more or less unchanged, it is very apt 

 to have a pair of these flycatchers resort to it year after year." 



W. L. Dawson (1923) says that, in California, it "is a lover of the 

 half-open situations, bushy rather than timbered, of clearings, low 

 thickets, and river-banks. Above all, it is wedded to the lesser wil- 

 lows, Salix flavescens, S. lasiolepis, S. sessilifolia, and the rest. Un- 

 like its congeners, it will follow a stream out into the desert, if 

 only a few willows or cottonwoods will keep it company." He also 

 found it in the heart of the Sierras, "though not often to altitudes 

 above 6,000 or 7,000 feet. * * * The highest elevation at which 

 I have ever found this species breeding is at Mammoth Camp, in 

 southern Mono County, at an elevation of 8,000 feet." 



Grinnell and Storer (1924) say: "The Traill adheres closely to 

 the cover of thickets ; it must be looked for beneath the level of the 

 willow tops. It is thus very different in perch predilection from 

 most of the other Empidonaces." 



Nesting. — Mr. Rathbun says (MS.) that in the vicinity of Seattle, 

 Wash., this flycatcher does not appear to arrive until about the 

 middle of May or later. "The many records we have indicate its 

 nesting period to be from about the middle of June until well into 

 July. Ususally the nest is placed at a height of only a few feet in 

 some small bush, and often in a large bracken, if any such are in the 

 bird's territory, for this growth seems to be favored by this fly- 

 catcher. Once I found a nest in a small clump of willows standing 

 in quite a depth of water, my attention being attracted to the nest 

 by its size and the many dry, long grasses dangling from it. This 

 flycatcher's nest is a neat affair, somewhat loosely made of various 



