FLYCATCHERS 361 



to capture an insect, but usually moves on to a new perch, evidently 

 preferring to go after its prey rather than passively wait for the latter 

 to chance by. Often, when taking flight for but a short distance, the bird 

 retains the upright posture of its body, and with its tail drooped and 

 slightly expanded flutters from one perch to the next. Nor is it so 

 restricted in home range as the kingbird. Most flycatchers, the kingbird 

 included, are wont to remain in a restricted area after once being estab- 

 lished for the season, but the Ash-throat seems to be more enterprising 

 and ranges widely over the brushlands. When perched its rather upright 

 posture, together with its slightly crested head and long tail held in line 

 with the back and body, gives it a characteristic outline, recognizable 

 almost as far as the bird may be seen at all. 



In the Upper Sonoran Zone, for example at Pleasant Valley or Coulter - 

 ville, the Ash-throated Flycatcher is common on the brush-covered hill- 

 sides, flying from one dead greasewood stub to another, snapping up 

 various insects attracted there by the flowers of the greasewood, yerba 

 santa, and deer brush, and uttering at intervals its not unpleasant throaty 

 call notes. 



In the dry bed of a caiion below the chaparral-covered hills west of 

 Coulterville one of these flycatchers was watched for some time on a 

 morning in May. This particular individual faced in, toward the foliage 

 of the live oak in which it perched, and several times was seen to gather 

 insects from the foliage within range by merely reaching for them. Once 

 it took a smooth worm and, gulping it only part way down, flew off to 

 another perch before completing the act of swallowing. Another insect 

 taken earlier was swallowed with much gulping, the contractions of the 

 throat being easily seen. 



This flycatcher has access to an abundant food supply in the chaparral 

 belt, and there is no other species of flycatcher there to compete with it. 

 This food supply, however, is greatly reduced or entirely gone during the 

 cold season of the year and so the Ash-throat departs; it migrates south 

 early in the fall and spends the winter months in Mexico and Central 

 America. The species is a late arrival in spring, for on May 24 at Pleasant 

 Valley and on May 26 at Snelling birds of this species, evidently still in 

 migration, were seen working in a general northeasterly direction. On 

 the earlier date about 25 individuals were observed, many more than would 

 have been recorded over the same census route had there been no migrants 

 in the region. 



