SMALL-HEADED FLYCATCHER. 291 



with dull white, with which also the secondary quills are margined and 

 narrowly tipped. Tail olive-brown, the lateral feathers lighter, its 

 outer web pale brownish-grey. The lower throat, fore part of the 

 neck, and a portion of the breast and sides, are ash-grey ; the rest of 

 the lower parts and lower wing-coverts pale yellow. 



Length to end of tail h^^ ; bill along the ridge -^-q, ; wing from 

 flexure 2i% ; tail 1\\ ; tarsus |^ ; hind toe x'^, its claw H ; middle toe 

 i|, its claw I'j. 



SMALL HEADED FLYCATCHER. 



MUSCICAPA MINUTA, WiLSON. 

 PLATE CCCCXXXIV. Male. 



The sight of the figure of this species brings to my recollection a 

 curious incident of long-past days, when I drew it at Louisville in 

 Kentucky. It was in the early part of the spring of 1808, thirty 

 years ago, that I procured a specimen of it while searching the mar- 

 gins of a pond. Had any one then suggested that it might yet be 

 figm-ed in London as part of a work comprising five hundred species 

 of birds of the United States and British America, I should have 

 smiled and shaken my head. The drawings which I then made were 

 simply intended for the gratification of my best friend on earth, my 

 beloved wife, as well as myself and some of her relatives, especially 

 Miss EuPHEMiA GiFFoRD, to whom, as good fortune would have it, I 

 sent about thirty before I removed to Henderson, where, as I have 

 long since told you, the contents of my portfolios were destroyed by 

 the rats ; but I never once imagined that the observations which I 

 now and then made, and stored up in my mind, should some day accu- 

 mulate so as to form some thousand pages of print, or that my drawings 

 should compose four volumes, each large enough to require two stout 

 arms to raise it from the ground. 



In those happy days, kind Reader, I thought not of the minute dif- 

 ferences by which one species may be distinguished from another in 

 words, or of the necessity of comparing tarsi, toes, claws, and quills, 

 although I have, as yoa are aware, frequently troubled you with tedi- 



