BIRDS or INDIANA. 1101 



tions, bushes and underbrush, seldom going higher than the 

 branches of short-bodied trees. This species frequents the edges of 

 woodlands and thickets along streams and on waste land. There they 

 may be found industriously catching insects, taking most of them on 

 the wing. Its song may be heard about its haunts morning and even- 

 ing. It is a characteristic voice that instantly draws one's attention 

 to it. Often it has called me away into some little thicket in a woods 

 pasture or among the low, drooping limbs of some unpromising look- 

 ing beech trees in the edge of heavy timber. Those which seem the 

 most unpromising places to men are often attractive to birds. Several 

 times, as I can recall, the best take of the day or the season was found 

 in some uninviting spot, to which I was drawn merely incidentally. 



Mr. Earnest E. Thompson notes its loud and striking song as rup- 

 ii-che, rup-it-che, rup-it-chitt-it-Utt" The earliest spring record is 

 from Knox County, where Mr. Robert Ridgway took it, April 18, 

 1881. It has been first noted in spring at Bloomington, April 27, 

 1886; Brookville, May 2, 1881, May 16, 1884; Richmond, May 16, 

 1897; Lafayette, May 16, 1897; Carroll County, May 12, 1885; Wa- 

 bash, May 10, 1892; Starke County, May 11, 1884; Lake County, May 

 9, 1877, May 16, 1880; Chicago, 111., May 1, 1886, May 18, 1896; 

 Petersburg, Mich., May 11, 1888, May 16, 1893. May 21, 1892, one 

 was caught in the office of Purdue University, at Lafayette (L. A. and 

 C. D. Test). They have remained at Greencastle until May 26, 1895; 

 at Spearsville, May 24, 1894; Lafayette, May 25, 1893; Carroll County, 

 May 24, 1883; Chicago, 111., May 30, 1894; Petersburg, Mich., June 1, 

 1893. When they return in the fall they are songless. They arrive 

 some years late in August and most of them pass through early in 

 September, though one occasionally lingers into the beginning of Oc- 

 tober. They were tolerably common about Chicago, August 26 to 

 September 5, 1895 (Blackwelder), and were common near Cincinnati 

 the last of August and the first of September, 1879 (Dury and Free- 

 man). The last fall note at Sedan is September 7, 1889; at Lafayette, 

 September 4, 1894; Warren County, September 12 and 15, 1897; Lake 

 County, September 18, 1881. Prof. E. L. Moseley informs me he ob- 

 tained a specimen at Sandusky, 0., October 2, 1896. 



It has not been found in this State later in summer than the dates 

 ^iven above. Prof. W. W. Cooke, in his. report on Birds of Michigan 

 in the Mississippi Valfey for 1884 and 1885, says it has been known 

 to breed in northern Illinois. I do not know of its breeding farther 

 south in Michigan than Bay City, where Mr. N. A. Eddy took a nest 

 and four eggs, June 2, 1885 (Cook, B. of M., p. 138). 



Prof. F. H. King examined three specimens and found they had 

 eaten flies, a hymenopterous insect, beetles and larvae. 



