THE OOLOGIST 



307 



likely to be inhabited by the Flycatch- 

 er. For the tirst few weeks after its ar- 

 rival from the sotith it dallies among 

 the foliage with its companion's and de- 

 votes its time to quiet courtship and 

 the delights of love, enjoying some- 

 thing similar to the honeymoon of 

 more rational beings. If we ramble 

 along a hedgerow at this season we 

 shall hear it sporting with its mates, 

 uttering a gentle queet, perhaps fol- 

 lowed by a low squeaky monologue or 

 dialogue. Presently it will dartdnto 

 view pursued by a companion, a male 

 pursuing a female, both saying the soft 

 but emphatic queet, and then they will 

 disappear in the foliage as quickly as 

 they appeared. When over the hedge 

 out of our sight, they will talk in a low, 

 lisping chatter, readily suggestive of 

 the tirst efforts of a child to blow his 

 tin whistle, this being the nearest ap- 

 proach to singing. Perhaps one of the 

 birds will fly over and perch momentar- 

 ily on a bare limb in a Pewee-like man- 

 ner, moving away when he sees an in- 

 truder. In the breeding season all this 

 occurs near the nest; in fact it means 

 that you are within a small radius from 

 its home, from which neither male nor 

 female seldom venture very far. 



Nests of Traill's Flycatcher are sel- 

 dom found in this locality before the 

 second week of June. I have repeat- 

 edly looked for them earlier without 

 success. Hedges furnish the most fav- 

 oi'ed sites and the distance from the 

 ground varies between three and ten 

 feet, the higher sites being in higher 

 hedges. Hazel, plum and alder bushes 

 are to their taste, and among such 

 bushes the nest is generally placed in 

 an upright crotch. On July 30th I 

 found a nest four feet from the ground 

 in a wild plum bush. It was placed on 

 a horizontal branch near the extremity 

 where twigs divei'ged from either side, 

 forming a firm base of support. In 

 hedges the nest is almost invariably set 

 on a horizontal branch and bound to 



one or more nearly upright twigs. I 

 have never found a nest fastened 

 around the branch on which it was 

 placed. In this season I have found 

 and examined twenty-three nests of 

 this species, all of which except two; 

 one in a hedge and one in a plum bush, 

 were on horizontal branches. Fre- 

 quently, however, nests are found on 

 obliquely ascending branches at points 

 where forking twigs afford places for 

 attachment, such situations being very 

 similar to the usual nesting sites of the 

 Goldfinch. The highest nests in 

 hedges are often set in regular crotches. 

 Most of the nests are found between 

 five and eight feet from the ground. 



There is little variation in the con- 

 struction of nests. The materials are 

 grayish vegetable bark fibers, dried 

 stems of weeds, feathers and pieces of 

 gossamer which are carried in large 

 mouthfuls by the builders and there- 

 fore the fabrication is not long in 

 building. Without, the structure has 

 no especial appearance of neatness, 

 and resembles the work of the Gold- 

 finch and the Yellow Warbler, though 

 lacking the compactness of the nests 

 of those species and averaging rather 

 larger. The cavity is finished more 

 smoothly than the exterior, usually 

 with fine dried grass and a few downy 

 feathers. Nests I have examined range 

 between three and two and a half 

 inches in diameter externally and from 

 two and a half to two and one fourth 

 inches high sitting in position. The 

 cavity varies between two and two and 

 one-fourth inches in width, and aver- 

 ages one and a half in depth. Among 

 twenty-three nests four held four eggs- 

 each, nine held three incubated eggs- 

 each, four contained three fresh eggs 

 each and six contained three young 

 each. 



I am convinced that only one brood 

 is reared in the season in this locality 

 as I have searched carefully for second' 

 nests without success, no nest contain- 



