Traill's flycatcher. 375 



The eggs vary from two to four, and I have often seen nests with a sin- 

 gle egg well advanced in incubation, or a single young bird, and believe 

 from the position of the nest, towards the end of a long horizontal or de- 

 clining limb, that eggs frequently fall from it when shaken by the wind. 

 They are of a light yellowish-buflf color, with a decided flesh colored tint 

 when fresh, and rather sparsely spotted with light-brown. They measure 

 .78 by .66. 



The Acadian Flycatcher is a favorite nurse of the Cow-bird; most nests 

 contain one egg of this parasite, and I have seen as many as four. On one 

 occasion I saw a Cow-bird in the effort to deposit her egg in this nest, 

 turn out all the eggs, the twig on which the nest was placed yielding to 

 her weight. 



Empidonax trailli (Aud.) Baird. 



Train's f lycatclier. 



Tyrannu8 trailUi, Beab, Fam. Visitor, iii, 1853, 359 ; Proo. Phila. Acad. Nat. Sci., ri, 1853, 



395. 

 Empidonax trailii, Kirkpatrick, Ohio Farmer, ix, 1860, 107. 

 Empidonax traillii, Wheaton, Ohio Agrio. Rep. for 1860, 1861, 362, 373 ; Reprint, 4, 15 ; 



Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 1875, 568; Reprint, 8. — Henshaw, 



Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, i, lb76, 14. 

 Empidonax trailli, Langdon, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 10. — Allen, apud Cones, Bull. 



Nutt. Om. Club, V. 1880, 24. 

 Empidonax punllus var. trailU, Langdon, Revised List, Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hiat., i, 1879, 



177 ; Reprint, 11. 

 Traill's Flycatcher, Kirtland, Am. Jonrn. Sci. and Arts, xiii, 1852, 218. 



Mitadcapa iraillU, Audubon, Orn. Biog., i, 1832, 236. 

 Tyrannue traillii, Nuttall, Man. i, 1840, 323. 

 Empidonax traillii, Baird, Birds of N. Am., 1858, 193. 



; pusillua var. trailli, Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, N. Am. Birds, ii, 1874, 



Above olive brown, lighter and duller broTrnish posteriorly, darker anteriorly, owing 

 to obviously dusky centres of the coronal feathers ; below, nearly as in acadieua, but 

 darker, the olive-gray shading quite across the breast ; wing-markings grayish-white 

 with slight yellowish or tawny shade ; under mandible pale ; upper mandible and feet 

 black. Averaging a little less than acadicus, 5J-6 ; wing, 2f-24, more rounded, its tip only 

 reaching about f of an inch beyond the secondaries, formed by 2d, 3d and 4th quills as 

 before, but 5th not so much shorter (hardly or not i of an inch), the 1st ranging between 

 5th aud 6th ; tail, 2^ ; tarsus, f as before, but middle toe and claw, three-fifths, the 

 feet thus differently proportioned owing to length of the toes. 



Habitat, Eastern United States aud British Provinces, west to the central plains, 

 whence to the Pacific replaced by var. pusilltta. South to New Grenada. 



Common summer resident in Central Ohio from May to September. 

 Breeds. Traill's Flycatcher, was first observed in this state by Dr. 



