214 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



from thickets of alders, silky dogwood, winterberry, and mountain 

 holly." 



Spring. — ^Writing of the least flycatcher in Massachusetts, Mr. 

 Forbush (1927) says: 



The bird arrives in spring before the other small flycatchers. A few individ- 

 uals are here ere the end of April, and when a thousand orchards burgeon with 

 the bloom of spring, when the first misty green begins to screen the woodlands, 

 a host of these little feathered warriors spreads over New England. At first, 

 in migration, they are rather silent and appear wherever open spaces among 

 the trees or along the edges of thickets gives them fly-room. At this time they 

 may be mistaken for the Alder Flycatcher, as they may frequent alders along 

 a brook and may even appear among the tall bushes at the edges of the 

 meadows. Later, when the females come, the males are the most vociferous and 

 pugnacious of their kind, and nearly every orchard resounds with their cries." 



Courtship. — As soon as the females arrive courtship begins in 

 earnest. The males are then the most active, noisiest, and most 

 pugnacious of any of our small birds. Rival males indulge in fre- 

 quent combats, fighting furiously until the vanquished is driven away 

 among the foliage in search of hidden females, and the latter are 

 chased about in pursuit flights through the leafage, across clearings 

 and over the open spaces, until the successful suitor proclaims his 

 victory with many vigorous chehecs and much flirting of wings and 

 tail. The pair is then ready to select its nesting site. 



Nesting. — In southern New England the least flycatcher shows a 

 decided preference for apple trees as nesting sites ; at least two-thirds 

 of the nests that I have recorded in Massachusetts have been in apple 

 trees in old orchards near houses; in such situations the nests have 

 been placed on horizontal branches, usually partially supported by 

 upright twigs, or in an upright fork of some small branch. In my 

 egg-collecting days, old and partially neglected orchards were always 

 considered favorable places to look for the nests of this and several 

 other species of small birds. We have also found the least flycatcher 

 nesting rather commonly on the pine barrens of Plymouth County, 

 Mass., where there was a scattering growth of small or medium-sized 

 pitch pines, with an undergrowth of scrub oaks and other under- 

 brush; here I have found as many as three nests in a short walk. 

 Some of the nests were placed near the ends of horizontal branches 

 and others against the trunks of the smallest pines at heights ranging 

 from 7 to 15 feet above ground. But other nests in southern New 

 England and New York have been found in pear trees, maples, 

 willows, oaks, alders, sycamores, locusts, beeches, elms, birches, 

 sumacs, wild cherries, and others. In northern New England, nests 

 have often been found in spruces, tamaracks, and other conifers. 

 William Brewster (1937) says that, in the neighborhood of Umbagog 

 Lake, Maine, "their nests are usually built in balsams, hemlocks, or 



