Species IV. MUSCICAPA RAPAX* 



WOOD PEWEE FLYCATCHER. 



[Plate XIII. Fig. 5.] 



Muscicapa virens, Linn. Syst. 327. — Lath. Syn. ii., 350. — Id. Siipp. p. 174, No. 

 82. — Catesb. i., 54, fig. 1. — Le gobe-mouche briin de la Caroline, Buff, iv., 543. — 

 Muscicapa acadica, Gmel. Syst. i., p. 947. — Arct. Zool. 387, No. 270. 



I HAVE given the name Wood Pewee to this species, to discriminate 

 it from the preceding, which it resembles so much in form and plumage 

 as scarcely to be distinguished from it, but by an accurate examination 

 of both. Yet in manners, mode of building, period of migration and 

 notes, the two species differ greatly. The Pewee is among the first 

 birds that visit us in spring, frequenting creeks, building in caves and 

 under arches of bridges ; the Wood Pewee, the subject of our present 

 account, is among the latest of our summer birds, seldom arriving before 

 the twelfth or fifteenth of May ; frequenting the shadiest high timbered 

 woods, where there is little underwood, and abundance of dead twigs 

 and branches shooting across the gloom, generally in low situations ; 

 builds its nest on the upper side of a limb or branch, forming it out- 

 wardly of moss ; but using no mud ; and lining it with various soft 

 materials. The female lays five white eggs ; and the first brood leave 

 the nest about the middle of June. 



This species is an exceeding expert Flycatcher. It loves to sit on 

 the high dead branches, amid the gloom of the woods, calling out in a 

 feeble plaintive tone, peto way ; peto way ; pee ivay ; occasionally dart- 

 ing after insects ; sometimes making a circular sweep of thirty or forty 

 yards, snapping up numbers in its way with great adroitness ; and 

 returning to its position and chant as before. In the latter part of 

 August its notes are almost the only ones to be heard in the woods ; 

 about which time, also, it even approaches the city, where I have 

 frequently observed it busily engaged under trees, in solitary courts, 

 gardens, &c., feeding and training its young to their profession. About 

 the middle of September it retires to the south, a full month before the 

 other. 



Length six inches, breadth ten ; back dusky olive, inclining to 

 greenish ; head subcrested and brownish black ; tail forked and widen- 



* Muscicapa virens, Linn., which name should be adopted. 



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