OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER 289 



(1832) named it Musckapa eoopevl and says: "This undescribed 

 species, which appertains to the group of Pewees, was obtained in 

 the woods of Sweet Auburn, in this vicinity, by Mr. Jolm Bethune, 

 of Cambridge, on the 7th of June, 1830. This, and a second speci- 

 men, acquired soon afterwards, were females on the point of incu- 

 bation. A third individual of the same sex was killed on the 21st 

 of June, 1831.-' Nut tall showed Audubon his first specimen of this 

 species in Brookline, Mass., and the latter (1840) gives an anmsing 

 account of the capture, on August 8, 1832, of the bird from which 

 his plate was drawn. 



The olive-sided flycatcher is now known to enjoy a wide distribu- 

 tion as a summer resident in tlie coniferous forests of Canada, cen- 

 tral Alaska, and Newfoundland and to extend its range southward in 

 the Canadian and Transition Zones into some of the Northern 

 States, and, mainly along the mountain ranges, in the east as far 

 as North Carolina and in the west nearly to the Mexican border. 

 It migrates through Mexico and Central America, to spend the win- 

 ter in northern South America. 



The characteristic and favorite haunts of the olive-sided flycatcher 

 are the opener coniferous forests of the northern woods, where tall 

 spruces, firs, or balsams lift their towering spires along the edges 

 of clearings, or "deadenings," about the shores of wilderness lakes, 

 along the banks of wooded streams, or around the borders of north- 

 ern bogs and muskegs. In such places the loud, ringing, strongly 

 accented notes of the male may be heard long before his upright form 

 is discovered perched on some dead branch or the top of some tall 

 dead tree, whence he can sally forth in pursuit of his insect prey or 

 warn his mate of approaching intruders. His territory is well 

 guarded, and no others of his own kind are allow'ed to nest in his 

 vicinity. 



Dr. Samuel S. Dickey tells me that, "although ordinarily closely 

 associated with evergreen trees," these birds do, even in Canada, 

 occasionally "depart from such cover and are observed to feed and 

 disport themselves among growths of aspens, poplars, birches, maples, 

 and mountain-ash trees." 



On several occasions the olive-sided flycatcher has remained to 

 breed for a few seasons in parts of eastern Massachusetts, far south 

 of its normal breeding range, establishing itself temporarily in situa- 

 tions quite different from those mentioned above. The birds 

 discovered by Nuttall (1832) were evidently established for at least 

 three years, 1830 to 1832, "in the solitude of a barren and sandy ])iece 

 of forest, adjoining Sweet Auburn," in an area "circumscribed by 

 the tops of a cluster of tall Virginia junipers or red cedars, and an 



