BEARDLESS FLYCATCHER 309 



under the subspecific name ridgwayi; A. J. van Rossem (1930) 

 concurred at least partially in this view; but Robert Ridgway (1907) 

 did not recognize the northern race; and Ludlow Griscom (1934) 

 confirms Mr. Ridgway's judgment. The 1931 Check-list agrees with 

 the views of the last two authors. As its name implies, the rictal 

 bristles, so prominent in other flycatchers and so useful in capturing 

 their prey, are exceedingly small or nearly lacking in this species. 



Dickey and van Rossem (1938) found this flycatcher ''a fairly 

 common resident of the coastal plain and locally, where swampy 

 conditions prevail, a short distance inland [in El Salvador]." They 

 say further: 



The thinly foliaged, low, deciduous forest along the peninsula of San Juan 

 de Goso was the only locality in which beardless flycatchers were at all 

 common. There, in January, 1927, the sparse scrub along the lagoon contained 

 a pair or more for every hundred yards of beach, and one was seldom out of 

 sound of their sharp, piping call-notes. 



Although the very densest jungle is avoided, still, many were heard in the 

 open, middle heights of the swamp forests about Lake Olomega, Puerto del 

 Triunfo, and Rio San Miguel. In such places it is usually difficult to take 

 specimens of this tiny, rather sedentary, and very inconspicuously colored 

 flycatcher. Were it not for the sharp and unmistakable call-notes which draw 

 one's attention, the species could be very easily overlooked. 



In Arizona we failed to find, or to recognize, the beardless fly- 

 catcher, though we spent nmch time in the valley of the Santa Cruz 

 River, which Mr. van Rossem (1936) says "is evidently the center of 

 its range in Arizona." And my companion, Frank C. Willard, evi- 

 dently had never seen it, though he had collected in this region for 

 several years. Probably we both overlooked it. However, Mr. van 

 Rossem (1936) says: 



I believe this species to be common in southern Arizona, and that the chief 

 reason why it has not been detected more often is its close resemblance in 

 color, size, and call notes to the Verdin. 



I first heard the "verdin" notes of this species at Continental on April 24, 

 1931, and caught occasional flashes of a bird in a dense patch of mesquite 

 and second growth cottonwoods along the nearly dry stream bed. On the 26th, 

 Dr. Miller and I went back to the same spot and succeeded in taking both 

 members of a pair which was nearly ready to breed. We next met the 

 Beardless Flycatcher in a grove of oaks, alders, and sycamores near the mouth 

 of Madera Canon in the Santa Ritas, at an altitude of about 4000 feet and 

 just at the juncture of Lower and Upper Sonoran Zones. * * * At Tuma- 

 cacori we found Beardless Flycatchers to be common in the groves of cotton- 

 woods and willows along the dry river bed. I estimated the population to 

 average a pair to every quater-mile for at least two miles either way from 

 our camp. However, pairs were by no means regularly spaced. 



Austin Paul Smith (1916) obtained specimens of this flycatcher 

 in January and February near a salt-water estuary 30 miles north of 

 the Rio Grande, in the vicinity of Harlingen, Tex. He writes : "This 



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