THE PERCHING BIRDS. 117 



that may pass beneath, and sighting one, it glides 

 gracefully downward, seizes the insect, and then 

 returns to its perch with a graceful upward curve 

 that shows how beautiful a movement flight may be. 

 And again, it will often launch leisurely into space, 

 and with outspread wings and upward toss of the 

 head sing as lazily as it is possible to utter the sylla- 

 bles peg-wSS. The words, if we may call them such, 

 are the same, but they have none of the snap of the 

 phcebe. 



Wood pewees are found in the West and South 

 and in British Columbia, migratory like the Eastern 

 bird, and much the same in all respects. 



The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is rare in the Mid- 

 dle States, not common in New England, and found 

 nesting in Canada. It is migratory. It has " gone 

 against the rules" more than once and stayed all sum- 

 mer in New Jersey, even nesting there ; and Warren, 

 in " Birds of Pennsylvania," gives various parts of 

 that State as its summer home. The song is rather 

 pleasing and more elaborate, as I have heard it, than 

 it is described by Nuttall even. The nest that I have 

 seen was in a tangle of Virginia creeper that clung to a 

 small tree, and was fully twenty feet from the ground. 



When the April sunshine has caused the leaf-buds 

 to open, and as we look through the woods we see 

 a pale-green shimmer, and sunlight penetrating to 

 where in a few weeks it will be effectually shut out, 

 at such a time and in such a place you will see a 

 small greenish-gray flycatcher, the Acadian, now 

 sailing from tree to tree, now pitching down from 

 higher to lower perches, and again mounting up- 



