142 BLUE-GRAY FLYCATCHER. 



exterior tail feathers fine yellow, tipped with dark brown ; wings and 

 back greenish olive ; tail coverts blackish, tipped with ash ; belly dull 

 white ; no white or yellow on the wings ; legs dirty purplish brown ; bill 



black. 



The Redstart extends very generally over the United States ; having 

 myself seen it on the borders of Canada, and also in the Mississippi 

 territory. 



This species has the constant habit of flirting its expanded tail from 

 side to side as it runs along the branches, with its head levelled almost 

 in a line with its body ; occasionally shooting off after winged insects, 

 in a downward zigzag direction, and Avith admirable dexterity, snapping 

 its bill as it descends. Its notes are fcAV and feeble, repeated at short 

 intervals as it darts among the foliage ; having at some times a resem- 

 blance to the sounds sic sic saic ; at others of weesy tveesy tveesy ; which 

 last seems to be its call for the female, while the former appears to be 

 its most common note. 



Species VIL MUSCICAPA C^RULEA. 



BLUE-GRAY FLYCATCHER. 



[Plate XVIII. Fig. 5.] 



Mutacilla ccrrulea, Turton, Syst. i., p. fillZ. — Blue Flycatcher^ Edw. PL 302. — 

 Regnlus griseus, the little Bluish Gray Wrtn, Bartram, p. 291. — Le Figuier gris 

 de fer^ Buff, v., p. 309. — Ccerulean Warbler, Arct. Zool. ii., No. 299. — Lath. 

 Syn. VI., p. 490, No. 127. 



This diminutive species, but for the length of the tail, would rank 

 next to our Ilumming-bird in magnitude. It is a very dexterous Fly- 

 catcher, and has also something of the manners of the Titmouse, with 

 wliom, in early spring and fall, it frequently associates. It arrives in 

 Pennsylvania from the south about the middle of April ; and about the 

 l)oginning of May builds its nest, which it generally fixes among the 

 twigs of a tree, sometimes at the height of ten feet from the ground, 

 sometimes fifty feet high, on the extremities of Uie tops of a high tree 

 in tlie woods. This nest is formed of very slight and perishable mate- 

 rials, the husks of buds, stems of old leaves, withered blossoms of weeds, 

 down from the stalks of fern, coated on the outside with gray lichen, 

 and lined with a few horse hairs. Yet in this frail receptacle, which one 

 would tliiiik scarcely sufficient to admit the body of the owner, and sus- 

 tain even its weight, does the female Cow-bird venture to deposit her 

 egg ; and to the management of these pigmy nurses leaves the fate of 

 her helpless young. The motions of this little bird are quick ; he seems 



