Widmann — A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 141 



estation will be the death-blow to this and a number of other 

 woodland species equally obdurate and inaccessible to civiliza- 

 tion. 



*466. Empidonax traillii Aud.. Traill's Flycatcher. 



Muscicapa traillii. Empidonax pusillus traillii. Empidonax pusUliis. 

 Little Flycatcher. 



Geog. Dist. — ^Western North America from Ohio, Illinois and 

 Michigan to the Pacific, and from Sitka and the Mackenzie River 

 south into Mexico. Winters south of the United States. 



As a fairly common summer resident the Traill's Flycatcher 

 has a pecuUar distribution in Missouri. It inhabits the entire 

 prairie region of northern and western Missouri, enters the Ozark 

 border subregion in Newton, Lawrence and Greene counties, 

 and follows the Mississippi River flood plain south at least as far 

 as Ste. Genevieve Co. It is not found in the Ozarks nor in the 

 lowland of the southeast. In the vicinity of St. Louis it arrives 

 with great regularity on the fourth or fifth day of May, seldom 

 earlier (April 29, 1884). At Keokuk, May 11, 1902 (Currier). 

 It is still numerous in the second week of September, probably 

 joined by transients, but disappears about September 25, rarely 

 later (October 4, 1905, St. Louis). Its original haunts are the 

 trees bordering rivers, creeks and lakes, or clumps of willows in 

 swampy places, but being a quick and wide-awake bird it was 

 not slow in accommodating itself to human surroundings and is 

 now at home in city parks and cemeteries, in orchards and the 

 fringe of trees and shrubs along frequented country roads. One 

 would expect to find a species with such a happy adaptive faculty 

 spreading rapidly with deforestation and cultivation, but this has 

 not been the case during the past twenty-five years and there is 

 no visible increase in their numbers. The only explanation for 

 this is the careless manner in which they place their nests in 

 exposed positions with no thought of concealment, and the late- 

 ness of their nesting, which does not allow a second attempt 

 when the first has been unsuccessful. 



466a. Empidonax TRAILLII ALNORUM Brewst. Alder Flycatcher. 



Empidonax pusillus traillii. Empidonax traillii. Tyrannus traUlL 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern North America from New England and 

 Newfoundland to Alaska, and in the United States found as far 

 west as western Nebraska. Winters in Central America. 



