HOODED FLYCATCHER. 301 



towards the great end. In all parts of the United States, where 

 it inhabits, it is a bird of passage. At Savannah I met with it 

 about the twentieth of March; so that it probably retires to the 

 West India islands, and perhaps Mexico, during winter. I also 

 heard this bird among the rank reeds and rushes within a few 

 miles of the mouth of the Mississippi. It has been sometimes 

 seen in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia; but rarely; and on 

 such occasions has all the mute timidity of a stranger, at a dis- 

 tance from home. 



This species is five inches and a half long, and eight in extent; 

 forehead, cheeks and chin yellow, surrounded with a hood of 

 black that covers the crown, hind head, and part of the neck, 

 and descends, rounding, over the breast; all the rest of the lower 

 parts are rich yellow; upper parts of the wings, the tail and 

 back, yellow olive; interior vanes and tips of the wing and tail 

 dusky; bill black; legs flesh coloured; inner webs of the three 

 exterior tail feathers white for half their length from the tips; 

 the next slightly touched with white; the tail slightly forked, 

 and exteriorly edged with rich yellow olive. 



The female has the throat and breast yellow, slightly tinged 

 with blackish; the black does not reach so far down the upper 

 part of the neck, and is not of so deep a tint. In the other parts 

 of her plumage she exactly resembles the male. I have found 

 some females that had little or no black on the head or neck 

 above; but these I took to be young birds, not yet arrived at 

 their full tints. 



