322 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMEPvIOAlST BIEDS. 



"During the past season I saw several individuals of this species, but not till 

 well down into the southern part of Arizona. I am inclined to think that it will 

 not be found to occur much, if any, north of tlie thirty-fourth parallel, and that 

 south of this it is a regular summer resident, though certainly far from common. 

 In all its motions it is a perfect EmpidonaxP^ 



Dr. A. K. Fisher, who met with the subspecies among the scrub oaks in the 

 Chiricahua Mountains, in June, 1894, informs me that one of the notes resembles 

 closely the chirp of Audubon's Warbler. 



Mr. F. Stephens obtained this Flycatcher in the Santa Eita and Chiricahua 

 mountains, Arizona, and in the mountains north of Fort Bayard, New Mexico, 

 in 1876 and 1880, but was unable to find either the nest or eggs, both of which, 

 as far as I am aware, still remain unknown. 



121. Pyrocephalns rnbineus mexicanus (Sclater). 



VERMILION FLYCATCHER. 



Pyrocephahis mexicanus Sclater, Proceedings Zoological Society, 1859, 45. 

 Pyrocejihalus rubineus var. mexicanus Coues, Key, 1872, 177. 



(B 117, C 263, E 330, 394, U 471.) 



Gbographioal RANGE: From Guatemala tliroiigh Mexico and Lower California to 

 the southern border of tLe United States, including southern Texas, southwestern New 

 Mexico, Arizona, and southern California; north to southwestern Utah, and probably 

 southern Nevada. 



The breeding range of the Vermilion Flycatcher is coextensive with its 

 distribution in the United States, excepting possibly southern California, where 

 I believe it has not yet been found nesting, though several specimens have 

 been taken there during the winter. Mr. F. Stephens met with this handsome 

 Flycatcher in the San Gorgonio Pass, and others are known to have been 

 taken near the Santa Anna River, in Los Angeles County, and at the mouth 

 of the Santa Clara River, in the vicinity of Santa Buenaventura, California, 

 which are the most western records I have been able to find for this species. 

 Mr. Stephens writes me as follows on this subject: "I consider all birds of this 

 species found west of the immediate neighborhood of the Colorado River as 

 stragglers, and do not know of a breeding record west of the Colorado River 

 bottom." 



It seems rather strange that it should be found only as a rare winter visitor 

 in southern California, but from present information this seems to be the case. 



The northern range of the Vermilion Flycatcher has recently been extended 

 into southwestern Utah, where Dr. C. Hart Merriam shot an adult female at St. 

 George, in the lower Santa Clara Valley, on May 13, 1891. In "North Ameri- 

 can Fauna, No. 7" (p. 66), he states: "She was killed in an orchard at Dodge 

 Spring, about a mile from the settlement, and contained large ova nearly ready 



1 Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, Vol. A^ 1874, p. 364. 



