WRIGHT'S FLYCATCHER 239 



Vowe. — Mr. Dawson (1923) gives a very good account of the notes 

 of the male, as follows: 



He has an extensive repertory of notes, entirely unlike any uttered by the 

 female, and of so varied a character as to have given rise to great confusion. 

 The two syllabled pewick' or pusek' note, especially, is very like that of hammondi, 

 although it is undoubtedly milder and less sharply accented. This note is sus- 

 ceptible of great variation, especially when uttered in groups of three : Pusek' — 

 pitic' — squiz' ik ; sit' ick — chit' ick — sue whit' ; pssit pewick pussee'. It is, 

 however, the high-pitched and resonant ich^w hit' call which startles the woods 

 and marks the movements of the male at the mating season. This note is 

 essentially a mating, or seeking, call ; and it is uttered successively from 

 prominent tree-tops over a wide range of territory. 



Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1920) gives a somewhat different render- 

 ing of what are apparently the same notes : "The ordinary call note was 

 a loud tsee-wiok, given almost as one syllable, that when heard near 

 at hand was startlingly like the chebee of the Least flycatcher. At a 

 distance however this resemblance was lost. The males had a peculiar 

 jerky song divided into couplets with slight pauses between that may 

 be represented by the syllables see-wick^ tsee-ee, se-wick, tsil-ly tsee-eeP 



Ralph Hoffmann (1927) writes: "The song of the Wright Fly- 

 catcher is a little more vigorous and much more varied than that of 

 the Hammond. It is commonly built up of three notes, psit tireek 

 pseet, the last note the highest, but these are often grouped in series 

 of fours, psit hreek psit pseet^ or otherwise varied. Even when the 

 song is made up of a series of three, it may be distinguished from 

 that of the Hammond by the absence of the low tsurp characteristic 

 of the latter. The Wright Flycatcher also utters, particularly toward 

 dusk, a quite different series of notes, tee, tee, tee-hick. The common 

 call note, used by both sexes, is a soft pit, heard constantly from the 

 bushes in which the bird nests." 



Field marks. — As stated under other species of Einpidoncux, the 

 puzzling western species of this group can hardly be recognized in 

 the field by the characters that separate the species; it is difficult 

 enough to recognize some of them, even in the hand. Habitats and 

 voices are the best guides to identification, but some of the habitats 

 nearly or quite overlap, and the various renderings of the songs and 

 calls, even as given by some of the keenest observers, are, to say 

 the least, a bit confusing and none too distinctive. Keen and dis- 

 criminating ears and considerable field experience are evidently neces- 

 sary in order to learn to recognize them. Wright's flycatcher can 

 easily be distinguished from the western, as the latter is much yel- 

 lower. The little flycatcher (tmiUi) has a very distinctive voice 

 and lives mainly in willow and other damp thickets. Hammond's 

 lives mainly at higher elevations and prefers coniferous forests. And 



