146 WARBLING FLYCATCHER. 



at once from south to north ; but progress daily, keeping company, as 

 it were, with the advances of spring. It has been observed in the neigh- 

 borhood of Savannah, so late as the middle of November ; and probably 

 winters in Mexico, and the West Indies. 



This bird builds a very neat little nest, often in the figure of an 

 inverted cone ; it is suspended by the upper edge of the two sides, on 

 the circular bend of a prickly vine, a species of smilax that generally 

 grows in low thickets. Outwardly it is constructed of various light 

 materials, bits of rotten wood, fibres of dry stalks, of weeds, pieces of 

 paper, commonly newspapers, an article almost always found about its 

 nest, so that some of my friends have given it the name of the Politician ; 

 all these substances are interwoven with the silk of caterpillars, and the 

 inside is lined with fine dry grass and hair. ' The female lays five eggs, 

 pure white, marked near the great end with a very few small dots of 

 deep black or purple. They generally raise two broods in a season. 

 They seem particularly attached to thickets of this species of smilax, 

 and make a great ado when any one comes near their nest ; approaching 

 within a few feet, looking down, and scolding with great vehemence. 

 In Pennsylvania they are a numerous species. 



The White-eyed Flycatcher is five inches and a quarter long, and 

 seven in extent ; the upper parts are a fine yellow olive, those below 

 white, except the sides of the breast, and under the wings, which are 

 yellow ; line round the eye, and spot near the nostril also rich yellow ; 

 ■wings deep dusky black, edged with olive green, and crossed with two 

 bars of pale yellow ; tail forked, brownish black, edged with green 

 olive ; bill, legs and feet light blue ; the sides of the neck incline to a 

 grayish ash. The female, and young of the first season, are scarcely 

 distinguishable in plumage from the male. 



Species XI. MUSCICAPA MELODIA* 



WARBLING FLYCATCHER. 



[Plate XLII. Fig. 2.] 



Tins sweet little warbler is for the first time figured and described. 

 In its general appearance it resembles the Red-eyed Flycatcher ; but 

 on a close comparison differs from that bird in many particulars. It 

 arrives in Pennsylvania about the middle of April, and inhabits the 

 thick foliage of orchards and high trees ; its voice is soft, tender and 

 Boothing, and its notes flow in an easy continued strain that is extremely 



* Muscicapa gilca, Vieillot, Ois. de L'Am. Sept. pi. 34. 



