366 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



Empidonax pusillus, Cabanis. 



LITTLE FLYCATCHER. 



? Flatyrhynchus pusillus, Swainsun, Phil. Mag. I, ilay, 1827, 366. Tyrannula pusilla, 

 Sw. F. B.Am. II, 1831, 144, pi. — Rich. App. Back's Voyage, 1834-36, 144.— 

 Gambel, Pr. A. N. Sc. Ill, 1847, 156. Muscicapa pusilla, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 

 288 ; pi. ccccxxxiv. — Ib. Birds Am. I, 1840, 236, pi. Ixvi. Tyrannus pusilla. Nut- 

 tall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840. Empidonax pusillus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 194. 

 Cooper & Suckley, 176. — Sclater, Catal. 1862, 229. Empidonax trailli. Cooper, 

 Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 327 (Colorado River). 



Sp. Char. Second, third, and fourth quills longest ; first shorter than the sixth. Bill 



rather broad ; yellow beneath. Tail even. Tarsi 

 rather long. Above dirty olive-brown, paler and 

 more tinged with brown towards the tail. Throat 

 and breast white, tinged with grayish-olive on the 

 sides, shading across the breast; belly and under 

 tail-coverts very pale sulphur-yellow. Wings with 

 two dirty narrow brownish-white bands slightly 

 tinged with olive; the secondaries and tertials 

 narrowly and inconspicuously margined with the 

 same. First primary faintly edged with whitish ; 

 the outer web of first tail-feather paler than the 

 inner, but not white. Under wing-coverts red- 

 dish ochraceous-yellow. A whitish ring round 

 the eye. Length, 5.50 ; wing, 2.80 ; tail, 2.75. 

 Young, Wing-bands ochraceous instead of grayish. 

 Hab. High Central Plains to the Pacific. Fur 

 countries. Southward into Mexico. Fort Whipple, Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 

 61) ; Vera Cruz, temp. reg. resident (Sum. Mem. Bost. Soc. I, 557). 



This race represents the var. trailli in the region west of the Eocky 

 Mountains. The present bird is paler colored than trailli, the olivaceous above 

 much more grayish anteriorly, and more brownish posteriorly, the olive 

 being tlius less greenish and less uniform in tint ; the brownish shade 

 across the breast is lighter and mure ashy, and the yellow tinge posteriorly 

 beneath more faint ; the wing-bands lighter and more grayish. In color, 

 pusillus thus approximates somewhat to £. minimus, which, however, is a 

 very distinct species, and more closely related to H. havmiondi ; minimus 

 may be distinguished by much smaller size (the bill especially), the wing- 

 bands grayish-white instead of olive-gray, and the tail emarginated instead 

 of appreciably rounded ; minimus lays a white egg like E. ohscurus, while 

 pusillus and trailli lay distinctly spotted ones, and build a very different nest. 



Habits. Professor Baird, in his Birds of North America, assigns to this 

 species an area of distribution extending from the Great Plains to the 

 Pacific, southward into Mexico, and north to the fur country. Dr. Hoy cites 

 it as of Wisconsin in liis List of tlie birds of that State, but without positive 

 data for this claim ; it has, however, since been actually taken, a summer 



Empidonax pusillus. 



