FLYCATCHER FAMILY. 41 
and 20 contained no other food. This would seem to indicate that 
flies are preferred to other insects. The families Muscide, Tipulide, 
and Asilide were recognized. 
Caterpillars and moths amount to nearly 5 percent. Though not 
taken in great numbers, they are eaten regularly through the season. 
September shows the greatest consumption—over 14 percent. Moths 
were found in 18 stomachs and caterpillars in 4. One stomach was 
entirely filled with the remains of moths. 
Sundry insects, amounting to nearly 9 percent, make up the rest 
of the animal food. Dragonflies were found in 7 stomachs, and 1 
contained nothing else. EEphemerids were in 4 stomachs, lace-winged 
flies in 1, spiders in 3, and the so-called jointed spiders in 1. 
The character of the food shows that it is taken on the wing more 
exclusively than that of any other bird yet examined. Of the crea- 
tures that do not fly, ants were found in 2 stomachs, caterpillars in 
4, spiders in 3, and jointed spiders in 1. As some ants fly, these 
may have been taken in mid-air, but they were too badly broken to 
determine this point. 
Vegetable food.—Vegetable matter was found in 4 stomachs, but 
in 3 of these it was mere rubbish. One contained seeds of the elder- 
berry, the only vegetable food observed. 
SUMMARY. 
The western wood pewee, while often an inhabitant of the orchard, 
does not deign to taste of its product, if the above record may be 
assumed to be conclusive. Its diet is composed almost exclusively 
of insects, and of these a large majority are harmful species. 
WESTERN FLYCATCHER. 
(Empidonaz difficilis.) 
The western flycatcher avoids alike the hot valleys and the high 
mountains of California during the warmer months, but is more gen- 
erally distributed in migration. For a nesting site it selects a tree, 
a crevice among the roots of an overturned stump, a bracket under a 
porch, a beam under a bridge, or a hole under an overhanging sod on 
the bank of a stream. It has much the same liking for water as the 
black phoebe, though even more pronounced. A small stream run- 
ning through or near an orchard appears to supply ideal conditions 
for this little flycatcher, as the orchard makes an excellent foraging 
ground, and if it does not afford a nesting site, the bank of the stream 
will, The bird is quiet and unobtrusive, and often the first notice 
one has of its presence is to see it dart from the end of a near-by 
twig into the air in pursuit of an insect. It seems to be thus engaged 
all day; in fact, the writer has never seen one of these birds when it 
was not in search of food. 
