226 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



white nearly to its tip in griseus^ grayish white in wrighti, and but 

 slightly paler than rest of feather in hamm,ondi. The lower mandible 

 is entirely blackish brown externally, in hammoTidi, dull or lighter 

 brownish in wrighti, while in griseus it is blackish brown at tip and 

 abruptly straw yellow for its basal two-thirds, brightest along the 

 rami." 



In his table of measurements, it appears that, in general dimen- 

 sions, hammondi is the smallest, wrighti intermediate, and griseus the 

 largest, except that wHghti has the longest tail. 



The breeding ranges of these three species are none too well de- 

 fined, and many published records may prove to be subject to correc- 

 tion. According to the 1931 Check-list, Hammond's flycatcher is said 

 to breed "in Transition and Canadian zones from southeastern Alaska, 

 southern Yukon, and southern Alberta to the Sierra Nevada, central 

 California and Colorado." 



The breeding haunts of Hammond's flycatcher are mainly at higher 

 elevations than those of the other small flycatchers in the open forests 

 of firs, spruces and pines. Harry S. Swarth (1922) found it, in north- 

 ern British Columbia, "abundant on the upper Stikine, where it is 

 largely a bird of the poplar woods." He does not mention finding a 

 nest there, so his birds may not have been on their breeding grounds 

 at the time, "the last week in May." 



Samuel F. Rathbun writes to me : "Hammond's flycatcher is a more 

 or less common summer resident of western Washington, but it is in 

 the section known as the Olympic Peninsula that this species reaches 

 tlie height of its abundance, possibly because of the forest conditions 

 which there prevail. It seems to be partial to the somewhat open co- 

 niferous forest, though, even here, more often near their borders than 

 in their depths; and occasionally its note is heard in the fringes of 

 deciduous trees which sometimes grow along the edges of the conifers." 



W. L. Dawson (1923) writes: "In its summer home, in Oregon and 

 Washington, Hammond Flycatchers may be locally very common. I 

 have seen twenty in the course of a morning's walk in early June. Fir 

 groves, the edges of clearings, bush-clad hillsides with fallen trees 

 scattered about, the timbered banks of streams, these are favorite 

 places of residence." 



Farther south this flycatcher breeds at much higher elevations in 

 the mountains of California and Colorado. At one time both Dr. 

 Griimell and Mr. Dawson expressed some doubt as to the breeding of 

 this species in California, but it is now a well-established fact that it 

 breeds in the high coniferous forests of the Sierra Nevada. James B. 

 Dixon tells me that in Mono County it seems to breed almost exclu- 

 sively above 9,000 feet and that some nests were found at the topmost 

 tree limit, very close to 11,000 feet above sea level. 



