LEAST FLYCATCHER. 42 I 



blance to those of the Wood Pewee, — at this season probably 

 in South America. 



The Pewee, I believe, raises here but a single brood, which 

 are not abroad before the middle of July. The nest is ex- 

 tremely neat and curious, almost universally saddled upon an 

 old moss-grown and decayed limb in an horizontal position, 

 and is so remarkably shallow, and incorporated upon the 

 branch, as to be very easily overlooked. The body of the 

 fabric consists of wiry grass or root-fibres, often blended with 

 small branching lichens, held together with cobwebs and cat- 

 erpillar's silk, moistened with saliva ; externally it is so coated 

 over with bluish crustaceous lichens as to be hardly discernible 

 from the moss upon the tree. It is lined with finer root-fibres 

 or slender grass stalks. Some nests are, however, scarcely 

 lined at all, being so thin as readily to admit the light through 

 them, and are often very lousy, with a species of acarus which 

 probably infests the old birds. 



The plaintive and almost pathetic note of the Wood Pewee is a 

 familiar sound amid the orchards of New Brunswick, and the bird 

 is of common occurrence through Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba. 

 It breeds south to Florida, and winters southward to Mexico and 

 Guatemala. 



LEAST FLYCATCHER. 



CHEBEC. 



Empidonax minimus. 



Char. Upper parts olive; lower parts white, tinged with yellow; 

 Uie breast washed with olive gray ; wings with two bars of grayish white. 

 Length 5 to 5^ inches. 



N^est. On fork of a tree; of twigs and grass, lined with grass or 

 feathers. 



Eggs. 3-5 ; creamy white, usually unspotted ; 0.65 X 0.50. 



This is one of our most common summer birds in this part 

 of New England, arriving from the South about the last week 

 in April, and leaving us to retire probably to tropical America 

 about the beginning of September or sometimes a little later. 

 It also extends its migrations to Labrador and the Oregon 



