Relation of Summer Birds to Western Adirondack Forest 467 



requires the minor growth, for its persistent dashes for insects are 

 made in the spaces between the sapling clumps. 



This flycatcher is usually described as retiring in its habits, but 

 wherever I have found it in the breeding season it has impressed 

 me as more demonstrative and aggressive than most of the other 

 birds nesting in the same habitat. It manifests its most obvious 

 trait as a flycatcher in its relations with its neighbors, for it is 

 jealous of any birds that forage in the part of the ravine or thicket 

 it frequents, and will snap vigorously at any Chestnut-sided Warbler 

 or smaller bird happening to hunt in saplings where it is momen- 

 tarily working. These exhibitions of rudeness are not because of 

 the nearness of the intruder to its nest, for I have witnessed 

 this flycatcher snapping at a warbler or vireo when the latter was 

 at a considerable distance from the flycatcher's home. 



In another characteristic not generally known this flycatcher is 

 singular, for it has two styles of nest location, and frequently 

 evades detection of its nest because the observer seeks in the better- 

 known situations. It commonly finds a site in an upright crotch 

 of a bush or sapling, but in some instances it saddles its nest on a 

 horizontal branch from twenty to thirty feet from the ground. As 

 a rule, if it selects a site in a bush or sapling, the nest is made in 

 an upright crotch ; but if a tree is chosen as the situation, the nest 

 is saddled on one of the horizontal branches rather high from the 

 ground but low in the branching portion of the tree. I have found 

 more nests of the Alder Flycatcher in the middle story of the woods 

 than in the bush-sapling zone, somewhat like the nesting locations 

 of the Acadian Flycatcher. In another respect the Alder Fly- 

 catcher differs from the Least Flycatcher and the Wood Pewee, 

 with both of which it associates to some extent ; it leaves its breed- 

 ing habitat soon after the young become self-supporting, and in 

 the Adirondack region it is not noticed in voice or movements much 

 later than the end of July, whereas the other flycatchers mentioned 

 continue their activities in the neighborhood until late in August 

 at least. 



Eaton ('14, p. 1197), in writing of the Alder Flycatcher, says that 

 it is like the Green-crested or Acadian Flycatcher in that it usually 

 keeps out of sight among the foliage. This is different from my 

 own observations of the Alder Flycatcher, for it really seldom gets 

 into the foliage, though its movements are generally screened by 

 foliage between it and the observer. It follows the larger flv- 

 catchers in its habit of alighting on dead branches or bare portions 

 of the minor growth as it forages restlessly in and out among the 

 clumps of shrubbery in the ravine or area of bush it frequents, and 

 most of its activities are thus carried on in the open spaces in 

 its resorts. 



The song calls of the Alder Flycatcher have received a variety 

 of representations by different observers. J. A. Farlev observes 

 that its song consists of but one harsh explosive syllable. Allen 

 ('02, p. 84) gives a rendition of three syllables, ivee-see-up, with 

 the second syllable accented and the up ending very faintly. Fol- 



