The Brewster Flycatcher 
rate, he is the soul of devotion from the moment the chicks are hatched, 
and he has need to be, for they are voracious eaters. Professor BeaP saw 
a nestful of young Flycatchers fed twenty-four times in a single hour— 
336 times in a day. Expert service that, and no time for tips! 
No doubt the perspiring parents (but birds don’t really perspire) 
consider themselves sufficiently rewarded. They have a better opinion 
of their youngsters than I have, for of all bumptious youth, young West¬ 
erns are to me among the most exasperating. Instead of being tender, 
they as£ implacable. They have to very perfection that infantile frown 
which mars the looks of so many baby birds, giving them an appearance 
of preternatural gravity and cynical aloofness instead of beaming inno¬ 
cence. Would you soothe them with a finger—they first bristle, then 
cower. These are bad tokens, for as at a preconcerted signal they burst 
from cover like a bevy of partridges, and hasten to their several fates. 
Ah me! how many a pathway and how many a summer stroll has been 
saddened by these wayside explosions—premature and pitiful, and beyond 
repair! 
No. 173 
Brewster’s Flycatcher 
A. O. U. No. 466. Empidonax trailli brewsteri Oberholser. 
Synonyms.— Little Flycatcher. Little Western Flycatcher. 
Description. — Adults: Above brownish olive (Saccardo's olive to light brown¬ 
ish olive), clearest on back and rump; head and neck darker by reason of mesial dusky; 
wings dusky, the coverts and exposed inner secondaries broadly tipped with olive or 
pale olive-gray; tail dusky with some olivaceous skirting; underparts basally whitish 
or sordid whitish, the sides of neck heavily and the breast more lightly shaded with 
olive-gray; belly and crissum, or at least the flanks, more or less tinged with pale yellow 
(extreme examples are nearly as bright as E. difficilis, but others show the barest 
trace of yellow); wing-linings pale yellow; lores light gray to whitish; an inconspicuous 
eye-ring olive-gray. Bill brownish dusky above, lilaceous (in life) or whitish below; 
iris hazel; feet brownish black. Young birds are browner above, and have cinnamon- 
buffy wing-bands. Length about 139.7 ( 5 - 5 °); wing 70 (2.76); tail 57 (2.25); bill 
12.5 (.49); width at nostril 6 (.24); tarsus 16.5 (.65). 
Recognition Marks. —Warbler size; brownish olive coloration; not so yellow 
below as preceding species; brush-haunting habits; note a smart swit' choo. 
Nesting. — Nest: A rather bulky but neatly turned cup of plant-fibers, bark- 
strips, grass, etc., carefully lined with fine grasses; placed 3 to 10 feet up in crotch of 
bush or sapling of lowland thicket or swamp. Eggs: 3 or 4; pale creamy white, 
sharply but sparingly spotted, chiefly about larger end, with chocolate or dark reddish 
brown. Av. size 17 x 12.95 (-67 x - 5 1 )- Season: June; one brood. 
Range of Empidonax trailli. —North America, south in winter to Central America 
and Colombia. 
1 Food of Our More Important Flycatchers, Biol. Surv. Bull. No. 44, p. 58, 1912. 
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