2 26 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



120. Nuttallornis borealis (Swains.). 

 Olive-sided Flycatcher. 



Formerly a locally common summer resident ; now only a transient visitor, rare in spring 

 and recorded but once in autumn. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



May 15, 1889, one seen, Arlington Heights, J. Dwight, Jr. 

 May 20 — June 6. (Formerly in summer.) 



September 5, 1897, "one bird seen, and singing," Arlington, W. Faxon. 



NESTING DATES. 



June 16 — 25, formerly. 



The local history of the Olive-sided Flycatcher is peculiarly interesting. 

 The bird was first reported from the Cambridge Region by Nuttall who states ^ 

 that it " was obtained in the woods of Sweet Auburn, in this vicinity, by Mr. 

 John Bethune, of Cambridge, on the 7th of June, 1830. This, and a second 

 specimen, acquired soon afterwards, were females on the point of incubation. A 

 third individual of the same sex was killed on the 21st of June, 1831." All 

 three of these birds were apparently taken at ' Sweet Auburn ' where Nuttall 

 himself "watched the motions of two other living individuals," probably in 1830 

 or 1 83 1, although the year when his observations were made is not mentioned. 

 " One of the birds, the female, whom I usually saw alone, was uncommonly 

 sedentary. The territory she seemed determined to claim was circumscribed by 

 the tops of a cluster of tall Virginia junipers or red cedars, and an adjoining elm, 

 and decayed cherry tree . . . . , in the solitude of a barren and sandy piece of 

 forest, adjoining Sweet Auburn The nest of this pair I at length dis- 

 covered, in the horizontal branch of a tall red cedar 40 or 50 feet from the 



ground It contained 3 young, and had probably 4 eggs. The eggs had 



been hatched about the 20th of June, so that the pair had arrived in this vicinity 

 about the close of May." 



My own acquaintance with the Olive-sided Flycatcher also began at ' Sweet 

 Auburn' — or Mount Auburn, as it had then come to be called — and on June 

 9, 1867, when my attention was attracted by the clear, ringing voice of a bird 



1 T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 

 1832, 282, 283. 



