248 NOTES ON THE 



ing the most beautiful lake in the whole world, and listened 

 to the unostentatious pe-iuee, pe-ivee of the Phoebe Bird for an 

 hour at a time endeavoring to comprehend the lessons of its 

 sweet contentment with its lot however so humble it be 

 wherein consists all true human happiness. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Sides of breast and upper parts dull olive-brown, fading 

 slightly towards the tail; top and sides of head dark brown; 

 a few dull white feathers on the eyelids; lower parts dull yel- 

 lowish-white, mixed with brown on the chin, and in some indi- 

 viduals across the breast; quills brown, the outer primary, 

 secondaries, and tertials edged with dull white; in some 

 individuals the greater faintly edged with dull white; tail brown, 

 outer edge of lateral feather dull white, outer edges of rest like 

 the back; tibise brown; bill and feet black; bill slender, edges 

 nearly straight; tail rather broad and slightly forked, third 

 quill longest, second and fourth nearly equal, the first shorter 

 than the sixth. 



Length, 7; wing, 3.42; tail, 3.30. 



Habitat, eastern North America, from the British Provinces, 

 south to eastern Mexico and Cuba, wintering from the South 

 Atlantic and Gulf states southward. 



CONTOPUS BOREALIS (Swainson). (459.) 

 OLIVE- SIDED FLYCATCHER. 



In the spring of 1874, my son. Dr. R. W. Hatch, obtained the 

 first specimen of this species in a grove of forest trees within 

 two or three miles of the city. I have since found them quite 

 numerous during the time of migration, but by no means so 

 afterwards. They reach here about the first of May generally. 

 I have once found them as early as April 26th, but in several 

 years it has been from one week to ten days later when I 

 caught my first glimpse of them, although in any case they 

 might have been here some time before I saw them, for their 

 habits make it nececsary that they should be carefully sought 

 in restricted localities. In the year following my son's discovery 

 of the species, I obtained the nest and egg in a dry larch swamp 

 near to where the bird had first been found, a spot since embraced 

 in the beautiful Lakewood cemetery, on the shores and over- 

 looking one of our peerless suburban lakes. The nest, very 

 characteristic of the flycatchers, was constructed of much the 

 same materials as is employed in the structure of the king- 

 birds', and was placed on a horizontal limb of a medium sized 

 larch, at least a yard from the trunk and about fifteen feet 



