THE TRAILL FLYCATCHER. 389 
they obtain roughly afield, in a group where every floating mote of difference 
is gladly welcomed. The Traill Flycatcher, moreover, is a lover of the half- 
open situations, bushy rather than timbered, of clearings, low thickets, and 
river banks. Unlike its congeners, it will follow a stream out upon a desert ; 
and a spring, which gladdens a few hundred yards of willows and crategi in 
some nook of the bunch-grass hills, is sure to number among its summer 
boarders at least one pair of Traill Flycatchers. his partiality for water- 
courses does not, however, prevent its frequenting dry hillsides in western 
Washington and the borders of mountain meadows in the Cascades. 
Traill’s Flycatcher is a tardy migrant, for it arrives not earlier than the 
2oth of May, and frequently not before June rst. In 1899, the bird did not 
appear at Ahtanum, in Yakima County, until the 14th of June; and it became 
common immediately thereafter. This bird is restless, energetic, and pugna- 
cious to a fault. It posts on conspicuous places, the topmost twig of a 
syringa bush, a willow, or an aspen, making frequent outcries, if the mood 
is on, and darting nimbly after passing insects. During the nesting season 
it pounces on passing birds of whatever size and drives them out of bounds. 
It is not always so hardy in the presence of man, and if pressed too closely 
will whisk out of sight for good and all. 
The notes of the Little Flycatcher, as it used to be called, are various and 
not always distinctive. Particularly, there is one style which cannot be dis- 
tinguished from the commonest note of the Hammond Flycatcher, szwitchoo, 
sweéchew, or unblushingly, sweébew, sweébew, ssweet. Other notes, deliv- 
ered sometimes singly and sometimes in groups, are pisod; swit'oo, sweet, 
witoo; Swee, kutip, kutip; Hwit or hooit, softly. 
Nesting begins late in June and fresh eggs may be expected about the 
4th of July. Nests are placed characteristically in upright forks of willows, 
alder-berry bushes, roses, etc. They are usually compact and artistic struc- 
tures of dried grasses, hemp (the inner bark of dead willows) and plant- 
down, lined with fine grasses, horse-hair, feathers and other soft substances. 
Not infrequently the nests are placed over water; and low elevations of, say, 
two or three feet from the ground appear to prevail westerly. A Yakima 
County nest, taken July roth, containing two eggs, was half saddled upon, 
half sunk into the twigs of a horizontal willow branch one and a half feet 
above running water, and had to be reached by wading. 
Incubation lasts twelve days, and the babies require as much more time 
to get a-wing. But by September rst, tickets are bought, grips are packed— 
or, no! think of being able to travel without luggage—goodbyes are said; 
and it’s “Heighho! for Mexico!” 
