> PA Se 
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THE CANADA FLYCATCHER. 247 
which it is suspended, with a lining of extremely fine and trans- 
parent fibres. The greatest diameter does not exceed three and a 
half inches, and the depth is not more than one and a half. The 
eggs are four, dull-white, sprinkled with reddish and brown dots 
towards the larger end, where the marks form a circle, leaving 
the extremity plain. The parents show much uneasiness at the 
approach of any intruder, skipping about and around among the 
twigs and in the air, snapping their bill, and uttering a plaintive 
note. ‘They raise only one brood in the season. The young 
males show their black cap as soon as they are fully fledged, and 
before their departure to the South.”—— AUDUBON. 
This bird, according to Audubon, is not very rare in 
Maine, and it becomes more abundant the farther north we 
proceed. He found it in Labrador and all the immediate 
districts; it reaching that country early in June, and re- 
turning southward by the middle of August. 
MYIODIOCTES CANADENSIS. — Audubon. 
The Canada Flycatcher. 
Muscicapa Canadensis, Linneus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 327. Wil. Am. Orn., 
TIT. (1811) 100. Aud. Orn. Biog., II. (1834) 17. 
Sylvia pardalina, Bonaparte. Nutt. Man., I. (1832) 372. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Upper parts bluish-ash; a ring round the eye, with a line running to the nos- 
trils, and the whole under part (except the tail coverts, which are white), bright- 
yellow; centres of the feathers in the anterior half of the crown, the cheeks, con- 
tinuous with a line on the side of the neck to the breast, and a series of spots across 
the fore part of the breast, black; tail feathers unspotted. Female similar, with the 
black of the head and breast less distinct. In the young obsolete. 
Length, five and thirty-four one hundredths inches; wing, two and sixty-seven 
one-hundredths; tail, two and fifty one-hundredths inches. 
This beautiful species is a rather common spring and 
autumn visitor in all New England, and, in the northern 
sections of these States, is an inhabitant through the whole 
summer. It sometimes breeds in Massachusetts; and I 
have no doubt, that, in a few years, it will be found to 
breed abundantly in this State, as it has increased in num- 
