SPECIES 12. MUSCICAPA OLIVACEA. 



RED-EYED FLYCATCHER. 



[Plate XII. Fig. 2.] 



LINN. Syst. i, p. 327, 14. Gobe-mouche de la Caroline et de la ./- 

 maique, BUFF, iv, p. 539. EDW. f. 253. CATESB. t. 54. LATH. 

 Syn. m, p. 351, JVo. 52. Muscicapa sylvicola, BARTRAM, p. 

 290. PEALE'S Museum, JVb. 6675.* 



THIS is a numerous species, though confined chiefly to the 

 woods and forests, and, like all the rest of its tribe that visit 

 Pennsylvania, is a bird of passage. It arrives here late in April ; 

 has a loud, lively and energetic song, which it continues, as it 

 hunts among the thick foliage, sometimes for an hour with little 

 intermission. In the months of May, June, and to the middle 

 of July, it is the most distinguishable of all the other warblers 

 of the forest; and even in August, long after the rest have al- 

 most all become mute, the notes of the Red-eyed Flycatcher 

 are frequently heard with unabated spirit. These notes are in 

 short, emphatical bars, of two, three, or four syllables. In Ja- 

 maica, where this bird winters, and is probably also resident, 

 it is called, as Sloan informs us, " Whip-Tom Kelly," from an 

 imagined resemblance of its notes to these words. And indeed, 

 on attentively listening for sometime to this bird in his full ar- 

 dour of song, it requires but little of imagination to fancy that 

 you hear it pronounce these words, "Tom Kelly! Whip-Tom 

 Kelly!" very distinctly. It inhabits from Georgia to the river 

 St. Lawrence, leaving Pennsylvania about the middle of Sep- 

 tember. 



This bird builds in the month of May a small neat pensile 

 nest, generally suspended between two twigs of a young dog- 



* Muscicapa allitoqw, VIEILL- Ois. de I* dm. Sept. pi. 38. 



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