282 LIFE HISTOEIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



105. Contopus borealis (Swainson). 



OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER. 



Tyrannus borealis Swainson, Fauna, Boreali Americana, II, 1831, 141, PI. 35. 

 Contopus borealis Baird, Birds of North America, 1858, 188. 



(B 137, 253, R 318, C 380, TJ 459.) 



Geographical ranoe: North America; north in the eastern parts of the Dominion 

 of Canada to about latitude 50°, iu the interior of the Hudson Bay country to about lati- 

 tude 61°, aud in Alaska to latitude 63° N. ; south in winter through the higher mountains 

 of Central America to Colombia, South America. Accidental in Greenland. 



The breeding range of the Olive-sided Flycatcher in the eastern parts of 

 the United States is confined to the coniferous forest regions of our northern 

 border from northern Massachusetts and northern New York westward to 

 Minnesota, and probably also to some of the higher mountain peaks south of 

 these States; in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, the Virginias, and western North 

 Carolina, etc., where it has occasionally been taken during the breeding season 

 and possibly nests in limited numbers in suitable localities. It has also been 

 observed in the mountains of western Missouri by Mr. W. E. D. Scott in the 

 spring, and possibly breeds there; and the late Col. N. S. Goss reports that he 

 found it nesting near Wallace, Kansas, on May 27, 1883, an unusually early 

 date for this species. In the eastern provinces of the Dominion of Canada it 

 breeds up to about latitude 50° N., while in the interior it appears to be fairly 

 common in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the type coming from 

 Cumberland House, in latitude 54°. It extends north at least to Fort Resolution, 

 Gi:eat Slave Lake, in latitude 61°, where Mr. R. Kennicott took a male on June 

 20, which is now in the United States National Museum collection. On the 

 Pacific Slope it has been taken by Mr. F. Bishoff at Fort Kenay, Alaska, in 

 latitude 61°, and Mr. E. W. Nelson obtained a single bird on the Lower Yukon, 

 in latitude. 63°, which marks, as far as known, the northern limit of its range. 

 Mr. J. E. McGrath also took a specimen at Camp Davidson, Alaska, on May 18, 

 1891, which, together with the Bishoff skin, is now in the United States National 

 Museum collection. These records show that the Olive-sided Flycatcher is 

 pretty generally distributed over the southern coast districts of this territory. 

 From Alaska its breeding range extends southward through British Columbia, 

 Alberta, the forest and mountain regions of the western United States, including 

 the Rocky, Cascade, and Sierra Nevada mountains, with their tributary spurs 

 and outlying ranges, to southern Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, the San Pedro 

 Martir Mountains in Lower California, the Sierra Madre in northern Mexico. 

 It passes thence south in winter through the higher mountains of Central 

 America to Colombia, South America. 



West of the Rocky Mountains the Olive-sided Flycatcher seems to be 

 generally distributed throughout the forest and mountainous regions to the 

 Pacific coast, although it is nowhere very common. Mr. S. F. Rathbun, of Seattle, 



