BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 249 
above the ground. It contained five creamy-white eggs, spotted 
with two shades of reddish-brown, more pronounced about the 
larger end, and averaging in measurements, .85 by .65 of an 
inch. Iomitted to say that the nest had butavery superficial ex- 
cavation, leaving the form of the occupant very much as if 
squatted on, and not init. Owing to the breeding habits tak- 
ing them to such deep shade, these denizens of the forest are 
rarely seen by any but systematic observers who know some- 
thing about them. I see no reason to doubt their uniform dis- 
tribution over the timbered sections of the entire State, but it 
is nota little remarkable that they have never been reported 
to me from but one locality, and then by a little boy in the Big 
Woods, who sent me the bird and insisted that he could get the 
eggs for me, but he never did. 
Their food in most respects, is like that of the other Fly- 
catchers, consisting largely of larve during the rearing of 
the young birds. 
They leave the country in the autumn from the first to the 
tenth of September. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
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, res- 
embling 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 center; on each side of the rump, generally con- 
cealed by the wings is an elongated bunch of white silky 
feathers; the wings and tail a 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 mandibles black, lower mandible brown; the young 
of the year similar, but the color duller; the feet light-brown. 
Length, 7.50; wing, 4.33; tail, 3.30; tarsus, 0.6. 
Habitat, North America, breeding from the northern and the 
higher mountainous parts of the United States northward. In 
winter, south to Central America and Columbia. 
