AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



HE LEAST FLYCATCHER, 



75 



Among the most lively and interesting of our 

 summer visitors, is the Least Flycatcher. It is 

 with the deepest sense of enjoyment that I listen 

 to and watch this little tyrant when he makes his 

 first appearance in the spring. As you go out in 

 the orchard some morning in May, watching for 

 new comers, you will see him perched on a dead 

 twig in the top of some old apple tree, and he will be uttering his sharp 

 spoken notes with an emphatic snap of his head and tail at each note, 

 stopping now and then to catch an unfortunate fly that should come 

 within a few feet of him, or to drive away some sparrow that should 

 dare to stop in his presence. 



Ah! Very little has he changed since last year. He is the same 

 to-day, to-morrow and forever. I well remember a pair that took 

 possession of a large willow tree quite near our house, a few years ago, 

 and after guarding it properly a week or two, they decided to build there. 

 Slowly the nest progressed, but day by day it grew larger. In a week 

 or so it was finished, and finished it was, inside, and out. It was the 

 most perfectly made nest that I have ever seen. Each hair was placed 

 just so and each piece of bark, fibre and lichen on the outside was woven 

 together tightly making it nearly as firm as the foundation of a house. 

 It was placed in the fork of a branch overhanging the road and about 

 twenty feet above it. So well was it concealed that only sharp eyes 

 could detect it from the branches. 



In a few days more I made an examination and found four creamy 

 white eggs in the nest. They were very beautiful and I decided at the 

 time that I had never seen a more handsome set of unmarked eggs and 

 I still think so. As the days passed by the eggs 

 were hatched, and the young birds soon began 

 to show their feathers. In a short time they be- 

 gan to be crowded in the small nest, and I could 

 see them peeping over the edge as though long- 

 ing for the time when they would be 

 able to leave their crowded home. 

 They, as myself, little dreamed of the 

 fate that awaited them. One rainy day 

 while passing the willow, I heard a cry 

 of 'distress, and upon looking up, I was 

 much astonished to see a large 

 adder coiled around the branches, 

 with his gluttonous eyes peering 

 into the little flycatcher's nest. 

 He had been there sometime, as I 



