142 BLUE-GRAY FLYCATCHER. 



exterior tail feathers fine yellow, tipped with dark brown ; wings and 

 back greenish olive ; tail coverts blackish, tipped with ash ; belly dull 

 white ; no white or yellow on the wings ; legs dirty purplish brown j bill 

 black. 



The Redstart extends very generally over the United States ; having 

 myself seen it on the borders of Canada, and also in the Mississippi 

 territory. 



This species has the constant habit of flirting its expanded tail from 

 side to side as it runs along the branches, with its head levelled almost 

 in a line with its body ; occasionally shooting off after winged insects, 

 in a downward zigzag direction, and with admirable dexterity, snapping 

 its bill as it descends. Its notes are few and feeble, repeated at short 

 intervals as it darts among the foliage ; having at some times a resem- 

 blance to the sounds sie sic saio ; at others of weesy weesy weesy ; which 

 last seems to be its call for the female, while the former appears to be 

 its most common note. 



Species VIL MUSCICAPA CERVLEA. 



BLUE-GRAY FLYCATCHER. 



[Plate XVIII. Fig. 6.] 



Mdlacilla cceruha, Thrton, Syst. i., p. fil2. — Blue Flycatcher, Edw. PI. 302. — 

 ■ Regulus griseus, the little Bluish Gray Wrc/i, Bartram, p. 291. — Le Figiiier gris 



de fer, Bcff. v., p. 309. — Caendean Warbler, Arct. Zool. ii., No. 299. — Lath. 



Syn. VI., p. 490, No. 127. 



This diminutive species, but for the length of the tail, would rank 

 next to our Humming-bird in magnitude. It is a very dexterous Fly- 

 catcher, and has also something of the manners of the Titmouse, with 

 whom, in early spring and fall, it frequently associates. It arrives in 

 Pennsylvania from the south about the middle of April ; and about the 

 beginning of May builds its nest, which it generally fixes among the 

 twigs of a tree, sometimes af the height of ten feet from the ground, 

 sometimes fifty feet high, on the extremities of the tops of a high tree 

 in the woods. This nest is formed of very slight and perishable mate- 

 rials, the husks of buds, stems of old leaves, withered blossoms of weeds, 

 down from the stalks of fern, coated on the outside with gray lichen, 

 and lined with a few horse hairs. Yet in this frail receptacle, wliich one 

 would think scarcely sufficient to admit the body of the owner, and sus- 

 tain even its weight, does the female Cow-bird venture to deposit her 

 egg ; and to the management of these pigmy nurses leaves the fate of 

 her helpless young. The motions of this little bird are quick ; he seems 



