I 



HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER 231 



heights than most other members of the genus. Mr. Rathbun says in 

 his notes : "A favorite perch is among the upper branches or on the 

 extreme top of some tall, slender, dead tree at or near the edge of an 

 open space in the forest. From this it will make short flights after 

 winged insects, and invariably, after returning to its perch from such 

 excursions, it will flirt its tail once or twice before lapsing into a 

 quiet attitude." He says that on days of heavy rain it "will be found 

 low among the trees, at times only a few feet above the ground." 

 Bowles and Decker (1927) say of its behavior about the nest: 



The female sits very closely after incubation has commenced, so that it is 

 sometimes necessary to lift her off the nest in order to ascertain the contents, 

 but she ia seldom or never found on the nest until the set is complete. After 

 being flushed she is the tamest of the small Flycatchers, usually returning to 

 the tree very soon and otherwise displaying her anxiety. The male is very 

 watchful around the nest and will promptly drive off any other bird that comes 

 in its vicinity, in this way sometimes showing the oologist that a nest is near 

 at hand. We once saw a beautiful male Townsend's Warbler attacked and 

 driven off after quite a battle, in which the dusty colored little Hammond's 

 looked like a tramp. These birds are never at all shy in the vicinity of the 

 nest and are usually easily approached at any time elsewhere. 



Voice. — Hammond's flycatcher is said to be a rather silent species. 

 Mr. Rathbun says of it (MS.) : "The note of this flycatcher, when 

 heard at a distance, seems to be a single one, but, when a person is 

 close, it appears to be broken, or there seems to be a slight hesitancy 

 after the first part. To us, the note sounds like pee-eet, or even 

 pee-zeet, given somewhat deliberately; the zeet with a rising inflec- 

 tion, lightly accented and slightly prolonged ; it then ends abruptly." 



The bird also has a faint, soft call note that sounds like pit, or quip, 

 often uttered continuously. And it has a rather distinctive song, 

 by which it can be recognized. Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) 

 describe this as follows: "One singing bird that was watched June 

 24, 1925, had as its singing perch the very topmost snag of a dead- 

 topped white fir. The height of the perch was estimated at forty 

 meters from the ground. The bird continually shifted its body, 

 most frequently the head, from side to side. The head was thrown 

 back simultaneously with the utterance of the notes. The complete 

 'song,' given over and over again with monotonous regularity, 

 sounded to the observer as follows: se-put (uttered rapidly), tsur- 

 r-r-p (roughly burred), tseep (rising inflection)." 



Field marks. — Hammond's, Wright's, and the gray flycatchers can 

 hardly be recognized by the characters that separate the species (see 

 the first page of this chapter) , except under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances and at close range. The songs, which are quite different, 

 are the best field marks. Habitats are helpful. A small flycatcher 

 at a considerable height in a coniferous tree, especially at the higher 

 altitudes in the mountain ranges, is quite likely to be Hammond's. At 



