160 SWALLOW-TAILED FLYCATCHER. 



light gray ; the back and scapulars are dark cinereous, tinged with 

 reddish-brown ; the rump is of the same color, but strongly tinged with 

 black, and the superior tail coverts are deep black ; the under part of 

 the body is milk-white, the flanks being tinged with red ; the inferior 

 tail coverts are pale rosaceous ; the wings are brownish-black ; the 

 upper coverts and secondaries being margined externally, and at tip, 

 with dull whitish ; the under wing coverts are whitish rosaceous ; the 

 axillary feathers, above and beneath, are of a vivid scarlet color. The 

 tail is greatly elongated and excessively forked ; it is of a deep velvet- 

 black color, each feather having the terminal margin of a dull whitish 

 tint, and the shafts white at their bases. The three exterior feathers 

 on each side, are of a delicate pale rosaceous color, on a considerable 

 part of their length from the base. The external one is five inches and 

 a half long ; the second and third gradually decrease in length, but 

 the fourth is disproportionately shorter, and from this feather there is 

 again a gradual decrease to the sixth, which is little more than two 

 inches long. 



The female of the Swallow-tailed Flycatcher is probably very 

 similar to the male ; but the colors of the young bird are much less 

 vivid, and the exterior tail feathers are much shorter than those of the 

 adult. 



The Swallow-tailed Flycatcher is as audacious as the King-bird, at- 

 tacking with unhesitating intrepidity, and turning the flight of the most 

 powerful of the feathered tribe. Its note consists of a chirping, sound- 

 ing like tseh, tsch, much resembling that of the Prairie Dog [Arctomys 

 ludoviciana, Ord), by which it deceived the members of Long's party 

 into a belief that they were approaching one of the villages of this 

 animal. 



" A note, like that of the Prairie Dog (writes Say), for a moment in- 

 duced the belief that a village of the Marmot was near ; but we were 

 soon undeceived, by the appearance of the beautiful Tyrcmnus forficatus, 

 in full pursuit of a Crow. Not at first view recognising the bird, the 

 fine elongated tail plumes occasionally diverging in a furcate manner, 

 and again closing together, to give direction to the aerial evolutions of 

 the bird, seemed like extraneous processes of dried grass, or twigs of a 

 tree, adventitiously attached to the tail, and influenced by currents of 

 wind. The feathered warrior flew forward to a tree, whence, at our too 

 near approach, he descended to the earth, at a little distance, contin- 

 uing at intervals his chirping note. This bird seems to be rather rare 

 in this region ; and, as the very powder within the barrels of our guns 

 was wet, we were obliged to content ourselves with only a distant view 

 of it." 



The range of the Swallow-tailed Flycatcher appears to be limited to 

 the trans-Mississippian territories, lying on the south-western frontier 



