THE OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER. 135 



are a little more shy than they were during the season 

 of incubation, and their note is seldom heard ; and, when it 

 is, it consists of a melancholy strain, quite different from 

 that uttered in the spring and early summer. 



CONTOPUS, CABANIS. 



Contopus, CABANIS, Journal fur Ornithologie, III. (Nov., 1855) 479. (Type 

 Muscicapa virens, L.) 



Tarsus very short, but stout, less than the middle toe, and scarcely longer than 

 the hinder; bill quite broad at the base, wider than half the culmen; tail mod- 

 erately forked, much shorter than the wings (rather more than three-fourths); wings 

 very long and much pointed, reaching beyond the middle of the tail, the first 

 primary about equal to the fourth ; all the primaries slender and rather acute, but 

 not attenuated; head moderately crested ; color, olive above, pale-yellowish beneath, 

 \vith a darker patch on the sides of the breast; under tail coverts streaked. 



CONTOPUS BOEEALIS. Baird. 

 The Olive-sided Flycatcher. 



Tyrannus borealis, Sw. and Rich. F. Bor. Am., II. (1831) 141; plate. 

 Muscicapa Cooperi, Nuttall. Man., I. (1832) 282. Aud. Orn. Biog , II. (1834) 

 422; V. (1839) 422. 



Tyrannus Co.yeri, Bonaparte. List (1838). Nutt. Man., I. (2d ed., 1840) 298. 

 Muscicapa inornata, Nuttall. Man. I. (1832) 282. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Wings long, much pointed, the second quill longest, the first longer than the 

 third; tail deeply forked ; tarsi short; the upper parts ashy-brown, showing darker 

 brown centres of the feathers, this is eminently the case on the top of the head; 

 the sides of the head and neck, of the breast and body resembling the back, but 

 with the edges of the feathers tinged with gray, leaving a darker central streak; the 

 chin, throat, narrow line down the middle of the breast and body, abdomen, and 

 lower tail coverts white, or sometimes with a faint tinge of yellow; the lower 

 tail coverts somewhat streaked with brown in the centre; on each side of the rump, 

 generally concealed by the wings, is an elongated bunch of white silk}'- feathers ; 

 the wings and tail very dark brown, the former with the edges of the secondaries 

 and tertials edged with dull-white; the lower wing coverts and axillaries grayish- 

 brown; the tips of the primaries and tail feathers rather paler; feet and upper 

 mandible black, lower mandible brown; the young of the year similar, but the 

 color duller; feet light-brown. 



Length, seven and fifty one-hundredths inches ; wing, four and thirty-three one- 

 hundredths; tail, three and thirty one-hundredths; tarsus, sixty one-hundredths. 



Hob. Rare on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. Not 

 observed in the interior, except to the north. Found in Greenland. (Reinhardt.) 



This bird is a not very common summer inhabitant of 

 New England. It arrives from the South about the 20th 



