YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER 181 



birds sing very little when we see with what a convulsive jerk of the 

 head the notes are produced. Its plaintive call is far more mel- 

 odious — a soft, mournful whistle consisting of two notes, the second 

 higher pitched and prolonged, with rising inflection, resembling in a 

 measure chu-e-e'-'pP'' 



There are almost as manj^ interpretations and renderings of this 

 bird's notes as there are descriptions of them. L. M. Terrill (1915) 

 writes : 



Owing to the ventriloquial quality in the voice of this Flycatcher it was some 

 rime before I discovered the bird, probably the female, perched on a branch 

 two feet from the ground. Its alarm was sharper and more abruptly ended 

 than the call notes, sounding somewhat like the syllables "pee-wheep" ; the first 

 note suggesting the Wood Pewee and the latter the Alder Flycatcher. The 

 last note commenced with a rolling and ended with a grating sound, as if the 

 bird had snapped off the sound by suddenly closing its mandibles, accompanied 

 by a tail and bodily twitching that indicated considerable effort. 



Hearing the usual call notes one would not suspect much effort, in fact, 

 their ordinary notes, "peeh-peeh," the latter slightly accented and prolonged, 

 have none of the explosiveness of "alnorum," but are peculiarly soft, drowsy, 

 and effortless. 



Various other renderings of the call note are: Chee-xoeep^ chee- 

 loeep; phee-i; puh-ee; pea; or too-wee. There seems to be some con- 

 fusion, or difference of opinion, among observers as to which note is 

 the alarm note, which the song, and which the call note; and I shall 

 not attempt to differentiate between them. Francis H. Allen (MS.) 

 thinks that "Dwight's rendering of the song, in Chapman's Hand- 

 book, is very good when it is heard near at hand ; heard farther off, 

 the song sounds more like Jdllink.''' Forbush (1927) says that "on 

 its breeding grounds a song is attempted with very indifferent suc- 

 cess, given by Dr. Hoy as pea-icdyh-pea-iodylc several times repeated; 

 it is soft and 'not unpleasant.' " Dr. Glover M. Allen (1903) , on June 

 19, in New Hampshire, "heard one of these birds give a peculiar 

 flight song, just after sunset. It flew slantingly upward for some 

 twenty feet and repeated a number of times alternately its ordinary 

 ''pu-ee' and ''killick.^ " 



Field marks. — This is a small flycatcher, olive-green above and more 

 decidedly yellow below, including the throat, than any other small 

 flycatcher in eastern North America; in fall, when some other fly- 

 catchers are somewhat yellowish below, this character is not so prom- 

 inent, though it is yellower then than the others; and it has a con- 

 spicuous yellow eye ring. 



Fall. — The yellow-bellied flycatchers begin to leave their northern 

 breeding grounds during the last half of August. They usually pass 

 through Massachusetts between August 25 and September 25, with a 

 few scattering late dates up to December 6. They frequent the same 



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