BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
295 
Plate L. 
PHAINOPEPLA NITENS, (Sw.) Scl. 
Black-crested Flycatcher. 
This very remarkable bird was originally described from Mexico by 
Swainson, and appears to have been first assigned to our fauna by Colonel 
George A. McCall, who met with it in 1852, while traveling from Valle- 
cita to El Chino. It is said to occur in mountainous regions throughout 
the southern portions of California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and 
Texas, and probably in parts of Colorado and Utah. In Southern Cali- 
fornia, according to B. W. Evermann, of Bloomington, Ind., who has 
devoted considerable time to the study of its habits, it is quite locally 
distributed, and is rather a common summer resident in the smaller valleys 
and canyons, but is rarely observed “ in the larger valleys or more open 
level country.” Among the foot-hills in the vicinity of Frezno Flats, he 
encountered considerable numbers on the evergreen oaks, in July, 1880, 
but only a single pair at the entrance of the Yosemite Valley, and these 
were perched high-up in a tall sugar-pine, not silent, however, but calling 
to each other in their own peculiar fashion. 
Our friend’s first acquaintance with this species was made in the 
delightful valley of Santa Clara in October, 1879, while collecting Gam- 
bel’s Sparrows. Intent upon the business before him, he was pursuing his 
way along a fence, when a strange bird, light and graceful upon the wing, 
was seen nervously moving from one point to another, ever and anon 
darting at some passing insect, and uttering in the intervals of feeding 
the oddest and most querulous note he had ever heard. This note, says 
our informant, was “ full of sadness, desolation and despair.” Never before 
