JUNE IN FRANCONIA. 9 



As there were at least two pairs of the 

 birds, and they were unmistakably at home, 

 we naturally had hope of finding one of the 

 nests. We made several random attempts, 

 and one day I devoted an hour or more to a 

 really methodical search ; but the wily singer 

 gave me not the slightest clue, behaving as 

 if there were no such thing as a bird's nest 

 within a thousand miles, and all my endeav- 

 ors went for nothing. 



As might have been foreseen, Franconia 

 proved to be an excellent place in which 

 to study the difficult family of flycatchers. 

 All our common eastern Massachusetts 

 species were present, the kingbird, the 

 phoebe, the wood pewee, and the least fly- 

 catcher, and with them the crested fly- 

 catcher (not common), the olive-sided, the 

 traill, and the yellow-bellied. The phoebe- 

 like cry of the traill was to be heard con- 

 stantly from the hotel piazza. The yellow- 

 bellied seemed to be confined to deep and 

 rather swampy woods in the valley, and to 

 the mountain-side forests; being most nu- 

 merous on Mount Lafayette, where it ran 

 well up toward the limit of trees. In his 

 notes, the yellow-belly may be said to take 



