310 LIFE HISTORIES OP NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



114. Empidonax pusillus traillii (Audubon). 



TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER. 



Muscicapa traillii Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I, 1832, 236. 



Empidonax pusillus var. traillii Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, History of North American 

 Birds, II, 1874, 369. 



(B 140, C 257, R 325a, C 385, U 466a.) 



Geographical range: Eastern and portions of western North America; north to 

 Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the southern portions of Quebec, northern Ontario, and in 

 the interior of the Dominion of Canada, from Manitoba, Assiuiboia, Alberta, and British 

 Columbia north to about latitude 63°, in the Mackenzie River Valley and southern Alaska ; 

 •west in the United States to eastern North and South Dakota; south in winter through 

 Texas and Mexico to Central America. 



The breeding range of Traill's Flycatcher, the eastern race of the Little Fly- 

 catcher, but not always readily distinguishable from it, extends from southern 

 New England, central and northern New York (the mountainous portions of 

 northern Pennsylvania?), northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and eastern 

 South Dakota, or from the southern border of the Canadian fauna northward as 

 indicated, reaching the northern limits of its breeding range in the vicinity of 

 Fort Simpson, Northwest Territory, and in southern Alaska, where it appears to 

 be rare, however. I consider this subspecies as being strictly a bird of the Cana- 

 dian fauna, and do not believe that it breeds south of these limits. In the south- 

 eastern portions of its breeding range, in New York and northern Connecticut, 

 Traill's Flycatcher is mainly found among alder thickets bordering the numerous 

 small mountain streams, or in rather wet meadows covered in places with under- 

 growth of willow, etc. In the Adirondack Mountains, in Herkimer County, New 

 York, Traill's Flycatcher is not an uncommon summer resident, very shy, and 

 much oftener heard than seen. In the vicinity of Wilmurt this subspecies was only 

 observed in the alder swamps and in beaver meadows, was very shy and retiring, 

 and therefore seldom seen, for instead of perching on some dead twig or branch, 

 like most of our Flycatchers do, it kept hidden among' the foliage as much as 

 possible. One of its notes, generally uttered during the breeding season when 

 sitting at rest on some twig in the top of a bush, resembles the "pree-pe-deer" 

 of the Little Flycatcher very much; another, the syllables "huip, huip;" and the 

 alarm note is something like " whuish, whuish," uttered quickly and emphatically, 

 being difficult to reproduce on paper. 



Mr. F. A. Patton found Traill's Flycatcher breeding in Miner County, South 

 Dakota, on June 30, 1892, and sent me one of the parents for identification, 

 which I consider to be referable to Empidonax pusillus traillii. 



Mr. J. Lockhart, of the Hudson Bay Company, has sent several sets of its 

 eggs, with the parents, to the United States National Museum, from Fort Resolu- 

 tion, Great Slave Lake, the most northern breeding record I have. It appears 

 to be a common summer resident in British Columbia, ranging from the coast 

 eastward tln-oughout the intervening British provinces, excepting a few of the 



