EMPIDONAX TRAILLI : TRAILL S FLYCATCHER. 39 



Coues as follows : " I could not understand your com- 

 parative diagnoses of nests of E. trailli and acadicus 

 until Mr. Brewster showed me a series of nests of E. 

 trailli from Ohio ; for in New England E. trailli builds 

 an entirely different nest from what it does in Ohio and 

 Missouri. The New England nests (Maine, New Hamp- 

 shire and Vermont specimens) are scarcely distinguish- 

 able from the ordinary nest of Cyanospiza cyanea, and 

 consequently suggest no comparison with the nest of 

 E. minimus, being bulky structures of coarse materials, 

 which no one would think could belong to the species 

 building the small, compact nests of soft materials that 

 come to us from Ohio through Dr. J. M. Wheaton, or 

 from Missouri through Mr. Widmann, such as you de- 

 scribe. It seems to me also noteworthy that E. trailli 

 breeds in the interior so much further south than it does 

 in the Atlantic States ; though noted as breeding spar- 

 ingly as far south as Long Island, it rarely nests 

 in New England south of the Canadian Fauna, or 

 south of central or northern Maine, and corresponding 

 points in Vermont and New Hampshire " (loc. cit., 

 p. 25).* 



A similar account of the nesting of trailli in Maine is 

 given by Mr. Purdie, who remarks upon the differences 

 observed in the structure of the nest and its situation 

 from such as Mr. Henshaw's description indicates. 

 "The nest," he says, "is built between the upright 

 shoots of low bushes, from one to five feet from the 

 ground, and is loosely constructed of grasses throughout, 

 including the lining. It is a much less compact nest 



* Consult also Pearsall and Bailey, " The Country," i, Apr. 20, 

 1878, p. 371 ; Purdie, ibid., ii, Apr. 27, 1878, p. 9, and May 4, p. 25; 

 Forest and Stream, x, Apr. 25, 1878, p. 216 ; May 9, 1878, p. 255. 



