252 NOTES ON THE 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



The second quill longest, the third a little shorter, the first 

 shorter than the fourth, the latter nearly forty hundredths 

 longer than the fifth; the primaries more than an inch longer 

 than the secondaries; the upper parts, sides of the head, neck 

 and breast, dark olivaceous- brown, the latter rather paler, the 

 head darker; a narrow white ring around the eye; the lower 

 parts pale yellowish, deepest on the abdomen; across the breast 

 tinged with ash; this pale ash sometimes occupies the whole of 

 the breast, and even occasionally extends up to the chin; it is 

 also sometimes glossed with olivaceous; the wings and tail dark 

 brown, generally deeper than in S. fuscus; two narrow bands 

 across the wdng, the outer edge of first primary, and the sec- 

 ondaries, and tertials dull white; the edges of the tail feathers 

 like the back, the outer one scarcely lighter; upper mandible 

 black, the lower yellow, but brown at the tip. 



Length, 6.15; wing, 3.50; tail, 3.05. 



Habitat, eastern North America to the plains, and from 

 southern Canada southward. 



EMPIDONAXFLAVIVEXTRIS Baird. (463.) 

 YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER. 



This pretty flycatcher, about which ornithological literature 

 seems to be by no means prolific, has long been a regularly ob- 

 served summer resident of the State, especially in this locality. 

 It reaches the borders of the State in its spring migration as 

 late as the 20th of May, and this locality on the 25th. The 

 foliage of the forest has become so dense, and the other birds 

 bearing a general resemblance to it so numerous, that only an 

 expert may hope to identify it, and he only by considerable 

 labor. Its efforts at song are very humble, not essaying more 

 than a weak and quite infrequently repeated pee-a, and tillic. 

 Others have found the nest occasionally, but I have been less for- 

 tunate even after much careful search. In his recent work on the 

 birds in their favorite haunts. Rev. J. Hibbert Langille quotes 

 from the observations of Messrs. Dean and Pardie as to the 

 nest, in which those gentlemen say: "It was placed in the up- 

 turned roots of a tree; and a large dwelling it was for so small 

 and trim a bird. Built in and on the black mud clinging to the 

 roots, but two feet from the ground, the bulk of the nest was 

 composed of dry moss, while the outside was faced with beau- 

 tiful, fresh green mosses, thickest around the rim, or parapet. 

 The eggs are usually four in number and are white." 



