306 LIFE HISTOEIES OF NOETH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



localities in the West, but it was especially common in the vicinity of Fort 

 Klamath, Oregon, where I took a number of its nests and eggs. 



Dr. Clinton T. Cooke has kindly sent me the following notes on this 

 species, based on observations made by him in the vicinity of Salem, Oregon, 

 during the years 1888 to 1891. He writes: "The Little Flycatcher arrives at 

 Salem about May 20, and for a week or two is very silent, seldom seen, and 

 rather inclined to seek the heavy undergrowth along water courses, where I 

 have found it silently but industriously capturing insects, much as the Western 

 Flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis) does later in the season. About June 1 they 

 begin to frequent the more open places, old pastures grown up with rosebushes, 

 the small islands, and the gravel bars covered with a dense growth of small 

 willows — in short, any open place near water where there is a growth of bushes 

 from 3 to 8 feet high. Their numbers increase in the open localities until the 

 middle of June, decreasing at the same time, and finally disappearing altogether 

 from the woods. As their numbers increase in the open places they become 

 pugnacious, and their shrill, sharp notes can be heard constantly. Their note, 

 given only during the breeding season, resembles the syllables of 'pree-pe-deer,' 

 delivered rather hurriedly and shrill. This call is quite characteristic of the 

 energetic, aggressive disposition of the bird. In July, 1891, I heard it several 

 evenings in the twilight, and once while out late in the night. As might be 

 expected, the male calls incessantly in the early twilight. 



"Construction of the nest begins soon after June 10, and ordinarily con- 

 sumes about a week, so that one may begin to search for sets of fresh eggs by 

 the 20th of the month. Along the Willamette River the nest is usually placed in 

 a small clump of willow bushes, preferably a bush well covered with cotton, and 

 it is apt to be pretty well concealed in an upright crotch, about 4 feet from the 

 ground, sand, or gravel, as the case may be. I have found only one nest in a 

 rose bush, on a bar where willows were common enough. One nest which I 

 found was placed in a slender willow, fully 18 feet from the ground, in an upright 

 crotch; another was placed in a willow bush growing in the water, and was 

 taken from a canoe, and several were placed within a foot of the sand or gravel. 

 The material uniformly used as a foundation for the nest is the inner bark of 

 small dead willows which have been killed by high water and subsequently 

 bleached by the weather, some fine rootlets, a little fine dead grass, a lining of 

 cotton down, with occasionally a piece of string and a few horsehairs. This is 

 often an artistic structure, but sometimes only a loose flimsy affair. Once I 

 have seen as nice a lining of horsehair as a Lazuli Bunting could put in; twice 

 a lining of fine rootlets, once one of green grass, and once one of fine green 

 rushes, which were common in that locality." 



Dr. Cooke's observations agree with my own; but at Fort Klamath, Oregon, 

 the Little Flycatcher, besides nesting in willows, is also rather partial to small 

 aspens. In California, in the Santa Clara Valley, they occasionally build in 

 blackberry bushes, and Mr. A. W. Anthony found several nests near Beaverton, 

 Oregon, placed in the forks of rank ferns from a foot to 20 inches above the 



