360 LEAST FLYCATCHER. 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Muscicapa trailUi Aud. (1832). EMPIDONAX TRAILLII Baird (1858). Empi- 



donax pusillus traillii B. B. & R. (1874). 

 DESCRIPTION: Sexes, alike. "Above, olive, iisually decidedly grayer on head; wing-bands varying from 



dull brownish-gfray, or grayish-brown to nearly white; lower parts, white, tinged more or less with 



sulphttr-yellow posteriorly, and shaded with olive-grayish on sides of breast; under wing-coverts very 



pale buffy-yellow. 



"Length, 6.00 inches; wing, 2.75; tail, 2.51 inches." (Ridgway.) 



LEAST FLYCATCHER. 



Empidonax minimus Baird. 



This is the most common species of the small Flycatchers, inhabiting the Northern 

 States and New England, breeding from the 40° of latitude northward, west to eastern 

 Colorado and central Montana. It is an abundant summer resident in Manitoba. 

 I noticed the first arrivals in central Wisconsin usually in the first week of May, the 

 van making their appearance during the second week of the month. Their call-note is 

 unmistakable, sounding very distinctly like cbe-bec. Hence its common name "Chebec." 

 Dr. T. M. Brewer gives the following interesting account of this species: 



"In Massachusetts this Flycatcher is one of the most abundant and familiar species, 

 arriving from about the 20th of April to the 1st of May. It is found most frequently 

 in orchards, gardens, and open grounds, and very largely on the edges of woods, 

 remaining until October. They are much addicted to particular localities, and return to 

 the same spot year after year, if undisturbed. A pair that had established their hunting- 

 grounds in an open area north of a dwelling in Roxbury returned to the same spot for 

 several successive years, and would come regularly to the piazza of the house, where bits 

 of cotton were exposed for the benefit of such of the whole feathered tribe as chose to 

 avail themselves of it. Each year they drew nearer and nearer the house, until at last 

 the nest was made in a clump of honey-suckle on the corner of the piazza, from which 

 they would sally forth in quest of insects, entirely unmindful of the near presence of 

 the family." 



In Wisconsin it is a rather common bird. In the time of my boyhood I observed it 

 in tamarack and white-cedar swamps, where it nested in slender trees, usually tamaracks, 

 twenty to twenty-five feet above the ground. Since that time the species "has been 

 gradually undergoing certain modifications of habits and manners in consequence of its 

 contact with civilization, and is now becoming familiarized to the society of man." 



The nest is usually placed in an upright crotch of a large shrub or small tree. It 

 is rather small and thin-walled when compared with the domicile of Traill's Flycatcher, 

 being felted of fine bark-strips, hempen fibers, feathers and horse hair, fragments of 

 cocoons and spider nests, etc.; the lining consists of grasses, shreds of bark, and a few 

 feathers. In swamps the nest is usually made of asclepias fibers, bark-strips, fine grasses, 

 and vegetable wool, and the lining consists of black rootlets, plant-down, and feathers. 

 The eggs are white, unspotted. Their number varies from three to four. 



NAMES: Least Flycatcher, Chebec. 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Tyrannula minima Brd. (1843). Muscicapa minima Aud. (1844). EMPWON.AX 



MINIMUS Brd. (1858). 

 DESCRIPTION: Sexes, alike. Hardly distinguishable in color from B. traillii. Wing-bands, usually whiter. 



