HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER 227 



In Colorado it has been recorded at elevations varying from 7,500 

 to 10,000 feet. 



Spying. — Hammond's flycatcher is evidently one of the earlier 

 migi'ants through Arizona and California, where it seems to be quite 

 generally distributed and, at times, fairly abundant. Referring to 

 Arizona, Mr. Swarth (190i) says: "Of the migrating birds passing 

 through this region in the spring the Hammond Flycatcher is one 

 of the first to put in an appearance, and about the last to leave. The 

 earliest noted, a male, was taken on March 30; the bulk of them 

 arrive early in April, and they remain in the greatest abundance 

 until the middle of May, when they begin to rapidly diminish in 

 numbers, the last being seen May 22. In the spring I found them 

 in all parts of the mountains, but most abundantly below 6000 feet, 

 and usually along the canyons, not far from water." 



Mr. Rathbun, in his notes from Seattle, says: "This flycatcher 

 arrives in the latter part of April. It is one of the species found in 

 the 'bird waves' that one sees at times. On these occasions, it is in 

 the company of warblers, kinglets, chestnut-backed chickadees, and 

 often red-breasted nuthatches, with now and then a few others; 

 and I have never seen a wave of our migrating woodland birds that 

 did not have at least a few Hammond's flycatchers." 



Nesting. — Mr. Rathbun says further (MS.) : "On two occasions 

 I have found its nest. In both instances it was placed in a small fork 

 of a limb of a fir tree of medium size, and the nests were at heights 

 of between 50 and 60 feet. The material used in each was thin strips 

 of fibrous bark and plant fibers; the lining was of fine dry grasses 

 and bits of dry mosses, neatly woven together." Mr. Dawson (1923) 

 writes : 



In the summer of 1906 Mr. Bowles and I found these flycatchers nesting on 

 a fashionable hillside section of Spokane. In two instances the birds were 

 building out in the open, after the fashion of the Western Wood Pewee 

 (Myiochanes richardsoni) : one on the bare limb of a horse-chestnut tree some 

 ten feet from the ground ; the other upon an exposed elbow of a picturesque 

 horizontal limb of a pine tree at a height of some sixty feet. A few miles farther 

 north we located a nearly completed nest of this species on the 20th of May, 

 and returned on the 1st of June to complete accounts. The nest was placed 

 seven feet from the trunk of a tall fir tree, and at a height of forty feet. The 

 bird was sitting, and when frightened dived headlong into the nearest thicket, 

 where she skulked silently during our entire stay. The nest proved to be a 

 delicate creation of the finest vegetable materials, weathered leaves, fibers, 

 grasses, etc., carefully inwrought, and a considerable quantity of the orange- 

 colored bracts of young fir trees. The lining was of hair, fine grass, bracts, 

 and a single feather. In position the nest might well be that of a Wood 

 Pewee; but, although it was deeply cupped, it was much broader, and so, 

 relatively flatter. 



Rose Carolyn Ray (1932) published the first authentic account of 

 the nesting of Hammond's flycatcher in the high Sierras of California. 



