( 93 ) 

 THE WOOD PEWEE 



MUSCICAPA VIRENS, LiNN. 

 PLATE CXV. Maee. 



The great similarity as to form, size, tone of voice, and general co- 

 louring, that exists between the Wood Pewee, Traill's Flycatcher, the 

 Muscicapa acadica of Gmelin, and a smaller species, which I found 

 abundant in Labrador, and which has been beautifully figured and de- 

 scribed in the Fauna Boreali-Americana of my friends Swainson and 

 Richardson, uiider the name of Tyrannula Richardsonii^ renders it 

 difficult to indicate their distinctive characters. The student finds it 

 difficult to recognise them ; and indeed, unless familiar with their habits, 

 it is not easy for any one to distinguish them at first sight, nor can the 

 observer be sure of the species, without paying very close attention to 

 their notes, and the various peculiarities of their manners. Even my 

 learned friend Nuttall has supposed that my Muscicapa Traillii, and 

 Gmelin's M. acadica, are the same, and has expressed his doubts as to 

 the differences between the latter and the smaller species mentioned above, 

 of which I intend, at a future period, to give you some account ; although, 

 almost at the same time, he says that he heard a Dark-coloured Flycatcher, 

 apparently larger than that represented in the plate, in the pine forest of 

 South Carolina, which was unknown to him, but which I have established 

 to be the M. Traillii. If doubts on the subject exist in the mind of such 

 an observer as Nuttall, who has examined the species both in the living 

 and dead state, in the very places which these birds frequent, how difficult 

 must it be for a " closet naturalist" to ascertain the true distinctions of 

 these birds, when, having no better samples of the species than some 

 dried skins, perhaps mangled, and certainly distorted, with shrivelled 

 bills and withered feet. 



It is in the darkest and most gloomy retreats of the forest that the 

 Wood Pewee is generally to be found, during the season which it spends 

 with us. You may find it, however, lurking for a while in the shade of 

 an overgrown orchard ; or, as autumn advances, you may see it gleaning 

 the benumbed insects over the slimy pools, or gliding on the outskirts 

 of the woods, when, for the last time, the piping notes of the Bullfrog 



