EMPIDONAX PUSILLUS. 539 



EmPIDONAX PUSILLUS.' 

 Little Fly<;atch«r; Traill's Flycatcher. 



(Pish' -e- wall' -e-tse of the Slioshones.) 



f Flatyrhynchm pusillus, Swainson, Syuop. Mex. Birds, Philos. Mag., 1, 1827, 3G6. 

 IJnq)idonaji; pusillus, Cabanis, Journ. fiir Oru., 1855, 480. — Baird, Birds N. Am., 



1858, 194; Cat. N. Am. Birds, 1859, No. 141.— B. B. & R., Uist. N. Am. B., 



II, 1874, 36G, pi. XLIV, lig. 9. 

 Emindonajo traillii var. pusillus, CouES, Key, 1872, 175; Check List, 1873, No. 



257a.— Hensuaw, 1875, 35G. 

 Empidonax traillii. h. pusillus, CouES, Birds N.W., 1874, 252. 

 Enqjidonax trailUi, CooPER, Oni. Cal., I, 1870, 327. 



This is the most abundant and generally distributed of the Emp'ulonaccs, 

 being, so far as known, the only one of the genus occun-ing across the 

 entire breadth of the continent." It prefers the lower portions of the 

 country, however, its favorite haunts being the willows of the river-valleys, 

 and we did not find it higher up among the mountains than an altitude of 

 about 7,000 feet, where it was confined to the willow thickets bordering 

 the streams flowing across the parks. In the environs of Sacramento City 

 it was, next to Tijrannus vertkalis, the commonest of the Flycatchers, and 

 was as characteristic of the willow copses as Contopus richanJsom was 

 of the oak groves. In its manners, this species is more lively than its 

 mountain relatives, E. obscurus and E. hammondi, especially after sunset, 

 when they chase one another among the bushes, twittering as they fly, 

 frequently perching on a high twig and with swelled throats uttering their 

 not unmusical note of twijy'utawah', which is translated by tlie people 

 of Parley's Park as "pretti/ dear,^^ by which name it was there familiar to 

 every one. 



'We are unable to ai)preciate difl'ercuces between western and eastern ("/miV/u") 

 specimens of this species sufficient to constitute the latter a recotrnizablc^ variety. It 

 is only those specimens from tlio dryer and more scantily wooded localities of the West 

 which are jialer and grayer colored than the average of eastern examples, and even 

 then the difVcrence is not comparable to that existing between E. ftaviventris and E. 

 difficilis. 



"As stated above, wo consider pusillus and 'HrailUV^ to bo in every respect 

 identical, while wo hold /acimi^rw and difficilis to bo specifically distinct. 



