322 LIFE HiaTOKIES OF NOKTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



"Duriug the past season I saw several individuals of tliis species, but not till 

 well down into the southern part of Arizona. 1 am inclined to think that it will 

 not be found to occur much, if any, north of the thirty-fourth jjarallel, and that 

 south of this it is a regular summer resident, though certainly far from common. 

 In all its motions it is a perfect Empkionax."'- 



Dr. A. K. Fisher, who met with the subspecies among the scrub oaks in the 

 Chiricahua ]\Iountains, in June, 1894, informs me that one of the n^tes resembles 

 closely the chirp of Audubon's Warbler. 



Mr. F. Stephens obtained this Flycatcher in the Santa Rita and Chiricahua 

 mountains, Arizona, and in the mountains north of Fort Bayard, New Mexico, 

 in 187G and 1880, but was nnable to find either the nest or eggs, both of which, 

 as far as I am aware, still remain indcnowu. 



121. Pyrocephalns rnbineus mexicanus (Sclater). 



VEEMILION FLYCATCHER. 



PyrocepJmhis mexicanus Sclater, Proceedings Zoological Society, 1S59, 45. 

 Pyrowphahis rubineus var. mexicanus OOUKS, Key, 1872, 177. 



(B 117, C 263, E 330, 304, U 471.) 



Geographical range: From Guatemala through Mexico and Lower California to 

 the southern border of tlie United States, iucludiug .southern Texas, southwestern I>'ew 

 Mexico, Arizona, and southern California; north to southwestern Utah, and probably 

 southern Nevada. 



The breeding range of the Vermilion Flycatcher is coextensive with its 

 distribution in the United States, excepting possibly southern California, wliere 

 I believe it has not yet been found nesting, though several specimens have 

 been taken there during the winter. Mr. F. Stephens met with this handsome 

 Flycatcher in the San Gorgonio Pass, and others are known to have been 

 taken near the Santa Anna River, in Los Angeles County, and at the mouth 

 of the Santa Clara River, in the vicinity of Santa Buenaventura, California, 

 which are the most western records I have been aisle to find for this species. 

 Mr. Stephens writes me as follows on this subject: "I consider all birds of this 

 species found west of the immediate neighborhood of the Colorado River as 

 stragglers, and do not know of a ])reeding record west of the C'olorado River 

 bottom." 



It seems rather strange that it should be fonnd only as a rare winter visitor 

 in southern California, but from present information this seems to be tlie case. 



The northern range o{ the Vermilion Flycatcher has recently been extended 

 into southwestern Utah, where Dr. C. Hart Merrianr shot an adult female at St. 

 George, in the lower Santa Clara Valley, on May 13, 1891. In "North Ameri- 

 can Fauna, No. 7" (p. 66), he states: "She was killed in an orchard at Dodge 

 Spring, about a mile from the settlement, and contained large ova nearly ready 



• Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, Vol. V, 1874, p. 364. 



