258 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



(from Huachuca Mountains, Arizona, June 17, 1922) available for laboratory 

 analysis, suggests that the bird is a beneficial species. Fragments of the fol- 

 lowing insects were noted ; five beetles ( including one Bembidion sp., one Agrilus 

 sp., one Pachybrachys sp. and one Rhynchophora) , 6% ; one short-horned grass- 

 hopper (Acrididae) , 1%; true bugs, including leafhoppers (Cicadellidae) , 

 chinch-bugs (Lygaeidae) and big-eyed bugs (Oeocoris sp.), 13%; more than 

 forty ants of three genera {Formica sp., Myrmica sp., and Solenopsis sp.), 65% ; 

 and undetermined hymenopterous fragments, 15%. 



Behavior. — The general behaTior of the buff-breasted flycatcher 

 is evidently not very different from that of other small flycatchers, 

 but practically all we know about it comes from egg collectors and 

 relates to behavior about the nest. Mr. Willard (1923b) says: 



In leaving a nest built high up from the ground, the female drops almost 

 straight down to the brush below and does not make a sound for some time. 

 The male seems to give the signal to her and he does most of the scolding, 

 flying from tree to tree and endeavoring to lead the intruder away. When the 

 nest is discovered, and the birds realize it, the female becomes very bold and 

 alights on the nest where she remains, frequently until nearly touched. The 

 male takes his departure about this time. 



During the nest building the male stays pretty close to the nesting tree, 

 but offers no assistance except to drive off intruding birds. He is good at that 

 and can also put big squirrels to flight. The female works persistently and 

 rapidly, but the nest requires a lot of material and she often takes ten days 

 to build it. She sits on the nest for short periods before the eggs are laid, and 

 also as the eggs are laid, but does not seem to make a real business of it until 

 the set is complete. 



Mr. Lusk (1901) tells of a male that seemed to show intelligence 

 in leading him away from the nest: "The male had a plan for frus- 

 trating the hunter which he worked diligently and as I have noticed 

 it in several, I take it to be characteristic. Each time as I ap- 

 proached the location of the nest, he came out some distance to meet 

 me and began calling and occasionally scolding in a certain locality, 

 thus leading me to believe the nest was somewhere in that vicinity. 

 Once, however, I waited until long after sunset in the vicinity of two 

 large pines, near which the soft pit, pit of the female, as I felt sure 

 it was, answering the male had suddenly ceased the day before. 

 Meanwhile the male was persistently, for two long hours, insisting 

 that all his interests were in the vicinity of a tall, leaning pine a 

 hundred yards distant, to which point he had come to meet me day 

 after day." He found the nest the next day in one of the pines in 

 which he had heard the female, and from which the male had tried 

 to draw him away. 



Voice. — He describes the note of the female on the nest above, and 

 says : "Every now and then [evidently at other times] the soft pit, pit 

 of the two, as they kept good account of each other's whereabouts, 

 was varied by the Chicky-whew of the male." Mr. Willard (1923b) 

 describes the alarm note as quit-quit, or again as quit-quit-quir-r-r. 



