PEWIT FLYCATCHER. 149 
a considerable way through the woods; and, as it flies from one tree 
to another, has a low, querulous note, something like the twitterings 
of Chickens nestling under the wings of the Hen. On alighting, this 
sound ceases, and it utters its note as before. It arrives from the 
south about the middle of May; builds on the upper side of a limb, 
in a low, swampy part of the woods, and lays five white eggs. It 
leaves us about the beginning of September. It is a rare and very 
solitary bird, always haunting the most gloomy, moist, and unfre- 
quented parts of the forest. It feeds on flying insects, devours bees, 
and, in the season of huckle-berries, they form the chief part of its 
food. Its northern migrations extend as far as Newfoundland. 
The length of this species is five inches and a half; breadth, nine 
inches; the upper parts are of a green olive color, the lower, pale 
greenish yellow, darkest on the breast; the wings are deep brown, 
' crossed with two bars of yellowish white, and a ring of the same 
surrounds the eye, which is hazel. The tail is rounded at the end ; 
the bill is remarkably flat and broad, dark brown above, and flesh 
color below; legs and feet, pale ash. The female differs little from 
the male in color. 
PEWIT FLYCATCHER. —MUSCICAPA NUNCIOLA. — Fie. 56. 
Bartram, p. 289.— Blackeap Flycatcher, Lath. Syn. ii. 353. — Phoebe Flycatcher, 
dd. Sup. p. 173: —Le Gobe-mouche noiratre de la Caroline, Buff. iv. 541.— 
Arct. Zool. p. 387, No, 269. — Peale’s Museum, No. 6618. 
TYRANNULA FUSCA. —Janvine. 
Muscicapa fusca, Bonap. Synop. p. 68. 
Tus well-known bird is one of our earliest spring visitants, arriving 
‘in Pennsylvania about the first week in March, and continuing with 
us until October. I have seen them here as late as the 12th of No- 
vember. In the month of February, I overtook these birds lingering 
in the low, swampy woods of North and South Carolina. They were 
feeding on smilax berries, and chanting, occasionally, their simple 
notes. The favorite resort of this bird is by streams of water, under 
or near bridges, in caves, &c. Near such places he sits on a "roject- 
ing twig, calling out, pe-wée, pe-wittitee pe-weée, for a who!’ ,norning ; 
darting after insects, and returning to the same twig; .requently flirt- 
ing his tail, like the Wagtail, though not so rapidly. He begins to 
build about the 20th or 25th of March, on some projecting part under 
a bridge, in a cave, in an open well, five or six feet down among the 
interstices of the side walls, often under a shed, in the low eaves of a 
vat 
however accurate. Tyrannula Trailii will come nearest to the Wood Pewee, but 
differs as well in some parts of the plumage as in the habits. It is found in the 
woods which skirt the prairie lands of the Arkansas River. — Ep. 
13* 
