252 NOTES ON THE 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
The second quill longest, the third a little shorter, the first 
shorter than the fourth, the latter nearly forty hundredths 
longer than the fifth; the primaries more than an inch longer 
than the secondaries; the upper parts, sides of the head, neck 
and breast, dark olivaceous-brown, the latter rather paler, the 
head darker; a narrow white ring around the eye; the lower 
parts pale yellowish, deepest on the abdomen; across the breast 
tinged with ash; this pale ash sometimes occupies the whole of 
the breast, and even occasionally extends up to the chin; it is 
also sometimes glossed with olivaceous; the wings and tail dark 
brown, generally deeper than in S. fuscus; two narrow bands 
across the wing, the outer edge of first primary, and the sec- 
ondaries, and tertials dull white; the edges of the tail feathers 
like the back, the outer one scarcely lighter; upper mandible 
black, the lower yellow, but brown at the tip. 7 
Length, 6.15; wing, 3.50; tail, 3.05. 
nabitat, eastern North America to the plains, and from 
southern Canada southward. 
EMPIDONAX FLAVIVENTRIS Barrp. (463.) 
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER. 
This pretty flycatcher, about which ornithological literature 
seems to be by no means prolific, has long been aregularly ob- 
served summer resident of the State, especially in this locality. 
It reaches the borders of the State in its spring migration as 
late as the 20th of May, and this locality on the 25th. The 
foliage of the forest has become so dense, and the other birds 
bearing a general resemblance to it so numerous, that only an 
expert may hope to identify it, and he only by considerable 
labor. Its efforts at song are very humble, not essaying more 
than a weak and quite infrequently repeated pee-a, and (illic. 
Others have found the nest occasionally, but I have been less for- 
tunate even after much careful search. In his recent work on the 
birds in their favorite haunts, Rev. J. Hibbert Langille quotes 
from the observations of Messrs. Dean and Pardie as to the 
nest, in which those gentlemen say: ‘‘It was placed in the up- 
turned roots of a tree; and a large dwelling it was for so small 
and trim a bird. Built in and on the black mud clinging to the 
roots, but two feet from the ground, the bulk of the nest was 
composed of dry moss, while the outside was faced with beau- 
tiful, fresh green mosses, thickest around the rim, or parapet. 
The eggs are usually four in number and are white.” 
