* 



SPECIES 3. MUSCICAPA NUNCIOLA* 



PEWIT FLYCATCHER. 



[Plate XIII. Fig. 4.] 



BARTRAM, p. 289. Black-cap Flycatcher, LATH. Syn. ir, 353. 

 Phcebe Flycatcher, Ibid. Sup. p. 1 73. Le gobe-mouche noiratre 

 de la Caroline, BUFF, iv, 541. Arct. Zool. p. 387, JVo. 269. 

 PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 6618. 



THIS well-known bird is one of our earliest spring visitants, 

 arriving in Pennsylvania about the first week in March, and 

 continuing with us until October. I have seen them here as 

 late as the twelfth of November. In the month of February I 

 overtook these birds lingering in the low swampy woods of 

 North and South Carolina. They were feeding on smilax ber- 

 ries and chanting occasionally their simple notes. The favour- 

 ite resort of this bird is by streams of water, under, or near 

 bridges, in caves, &c. Near such places he sits on a projecting 

 twig, calling out pe-wee, pe-wit-titee pe-wee, for a whole morn- 

 ing; darting after insects, and returning to the same twig; fre- 

 quently flirting his tail, like the wagtail, though not so rapidly. 

 He begins to build about the twentieth or twenty-fifth of March, 

 on some projecting part under a bridge in a cave in an open 

 well five or six feet down among the interstices of the side 

 walls often under a shed in the low eaves of a cottage, and 

 such like places. The outside is composed of mud mixed with 

 moss; is generally large and solid; and lined with flax and horse 

 hair. The eggs are five, pure white, with two or three dots of 

 red near the great end. See fig. 4. I have known them rear 

 three broods in one season. 



In a particular part of Mr. Bartram's woods, with which I am 

 acquainted, by the side of a small stream, in a cave, five or six 



* Mwcicapa /wsco, GMEL. i, p, 931. Lath. /m/. Orn. ir, p. 483. 



