TYRANT FLYCATCHER. 421 



tricts, excepting the Florida Keys, where it is represented by the Pipi- 

 rit Flycatcher. I have never seen it dive after fish, or even after aqua- 

 tic insects, although, as I have already mentioned, it throws itself into 

 the water for the purpose of bathing ; nor have remains of fishes been 

 found in its stomach or gullet. Like all Flycatchers, it disgorges the 

 harder parts of insects. 



How wonderful is it that this bird should be found breeding over so 

 vast an extent of country, and yet retire southward of the Texas, to 

 spend a very short part of the winter ! Some, however, remain then in 

 the southern portions of the Floridas. The eggs measure rather more 

 than an inch in length, and six and a half eighths in breadth ; they 

 are broadly rounded at the larger end, the other being suddenly brought 

 to a sharpish conical point. 



This bird has the mouth wide, the palate flat, with two longitudi- 

 nal ridges, its anterior part horny, and concave, with a median and 

 two slight lateral prominent lines ; the posterior aperture of the nares 

 oblongo-linear, papillate, 4^ twelfths long. The tongue is six-twelfths 

 long, triangular, very thin, sagittate and papillate at the base, flat 

 above, pointed, but a little slit, and with the edges slightly lacerated. 

 The oesophagus is 2^ inches long, without dilatation, of the uniform 

 width of 3 twelfths, and extremely thin ; the proventriculus 3^ twelfths 

 across. The stomach is rather large, broadly elliptical, considerably 

 compressed; its lateral muscles strong, the lower thin, its length 10 

 twelfths? its breadth 8 twelfths, its tendons 4| twelfths in breadth ; the 

 epithelium thin, tough, longitudinally rugous, reddish-brown. The 

 stomach filled with remains of insects. The intestine is short and 

 wide, 7 inches long, its width at the upper part 4 twelfths, at the lower 

 2 twelfths. The cceca are 2 twelfths long, i twelfth in breadth, and 

 placed at an inch and a half from the extremity. The rectum gradu- 

 ally dilates into the cloaca, which is 6 twelfths in width. 



The trachea is 2 inches 2 twelfths long, considerably flattened, 2^ 

 twelfths broad at the upper part, gradually contracting to 1| twelfth ; 

 its rings 56, firm, with 2 dimidiate rings. It is remarkable that in 

 this and the other Flycatchers, there is no bone of divarication, or ring 

 divided by a partition ; but two of the rings are slit behind, and the 

 last two both behind and before. Bronchial rings about 15. The la- 

 teral muscles are slender, but at the lower part expand so as to cover 

 the front of the trachea, and running down, terminate on the dimidi- 

 ate rings, so that on each side of the inferior larynx there is a short thick 



