EMPIDONAX ACADICUS : ACADIAN FLYCATCHER. 31 



ACADIAN FLYCATCHER. 

 EMPIDONAX ACADICUS (Gm.) Bd. 



Chars. Above, clear continuous olive-green, rather darker on the 

 crown, where the feathers have dusky centres ; below, whitish, 

 shaded with olive on sides and nearly across breast, washed 

 with yellowish on belly, flanks, and under wing- and tail-coverts; 

 wings dusky, the coverts tipped, and the secondaries edged 

 with tawny yellow; tail dusky, glossed with olive ; a yellowish 

 eye-ring; feet and upper mandible brown; under mandible pale. 

 The largest of this genus. Length, 575-6.25; extent about 9.50; 

 wing, 2.75-3.00; tail, 2.50-2.75; bill, nearly or quite 0.50; tarsus, 

 0.66; middle toe and claw, 0.50; point of wing reaching nearly 

 i.oo beyond the secondaries ; ist quill much longer than 6th. 



Notwithstanding the suggestive name, the " Acadian" 

 Flycatcher is scarcely a bird of New England, and much 

 misunderstanding has resulted from reliance upon erro- 

 neous records of its supposed occurrence in New Eng- 

 land. It should be remembered that it is now scarcely 

 more than twenty years since Prof. Baird first accurately 

 distinguished the four eastern species of Empidonax, 

 concerning which the greatest confusion and uncertainty 

 had before obtained. Passing over all the earlier records 

 which, whether having any basis of fact or not, are too 

 indeterminate for use, we may note the steps by which 

 we have reached the true state of the case. In the first 

 general list of New England birds, Dr. Coues speaks of 

 the Acadian Flycatcher in the following terms : 



" Summer resident. Not abundant. This species 

 seems to be more restricted in its northern range than 

 the others of the genus, apparently not proceeding much 

 farther than Massachusetts. It is not, I believe, recorded 



