250 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL 3VIUSEUM 



probable, and the feeding was continued fourteen hours, each was fed 

 84 times during the day." 



Plumages. — ^I have seen no very young specimens of the western 

 flycatcher. The sexes are alike in all plumages, and in juvenal 

 plumage the young birds are much like the adults, but much browner 

 above, and paler yellow or buffy below; the wing bands are 

 "cinnamon-bujff" or "ochraceous." 



The molts of this species apparently correspond to those of the 

 yellow-bellied flycatcher, to which the reader is referred. The post- 

 juvenal molt occurs long after the young birds have left for the 

 south and the prenuptial molt is accomplished before the birds 

 return in the spring, consequently molting specimens are scarce in 

 collections. What few specimens are available seem to indicate that 

 young birds molt the body plumage late in the fall and have a com- 

 plete prenuptial molt in late winter or spring. Adults seem to follow 

 a similar sequence, with perhaps a renewal of the flight feathers 

 during the winter. More winter specimens are needed to trace 

 these molts. 



Food. — Professor Beal (1910) exammed 141 stomachs of the west- 

 ern flycatcher, and his "analysis gives 99.28 percent of animal food 

 to 0.72 percent of vegetable." Of the animal food this bird appears 

 to eat more ladybird beetles than does any other flycatcher, more 

 than 7 percent of the food in August, but an average of only 2I/3 

 percent for the season. He says : 



Other beetles amount to nearly 6 percent, nearly all harmful, the exception 

 being a few ground beetles (Carabidae). 



Hymenoptera form the largest constituent of the food of this as of most 

 other flycatchers. They amount to over 38 percent. * * * No honeybees 

 were identified. * * * Hemiptera (bugs) amount to nearly 9 percent of 

 the food. * * * 



Dlptera amount to a little more than 31 percent of the whole food. • * * 



Lepidoptera, in the shape of moths and caterpillars, amount to about 7 per- 

 cent for the year, and were found in every month except March. They 

 appeared in 36 stomachs, of which only 7 contained the adult insects — moths — 

 and 29 the larvae or caterpillars. * * * a few unidentified insects and 

 some spiders make up the remainder of the animal food — about 6 percent. 



Vegetable matter was found in 16 stomachs, though some of it could not prop- 

 erly be called food. One stomach contained seeds of Rubus fruit (blackberries or 

 raspberries) ; 7, seeds of elderberries; 1, the skin of an unidentified fruit and a 

 seed of tarweed (Madia) ; while 6 held rubbish. The Rubus fruit might have 

 been cultivated, but probably was not. 



Theed Pearse writes to me that he saw one of these flycatchers cap- 

 ture a good-sized fly on a branch, hold it on the branch with its feet, 

 and tear it with its beak. Most of its food is probably captured on 

 the wing. 



Behavior. — There seems to be nothing peculiar in the behavior of 

 the western flycatcher, as compared with the other small flycatchers 



i 



