The Hammond Flycatcher 
particular tyrant is restless, energetic, and pugnacious to a fault. It 
posts in conspicuous places, the topmost twig of a ceanothus, a willow, 
or an alder, making frequent outcries if the mood is on, and darting 
nimbly after passing insects. During the nesting season it pounces on 
passing birds of whatever size, and drives them out of bounds. It is 
not always so hardy in the presence of man, and if pressed too closely 
will whisk out of sight for good and all. 
The notes of the Little Flycatcher, as it used to be called, are various 
and not always distinctive. The best-known one, and that which 
most accurately sums up the energy of its nature, is switclioo, sweechew, 
or, unblushing, zweebew, zweebew, zzweet. Other notes, delivered some¬ 
times singly and sometimes in groups, are pisoo; swit' oo, sweet, swit' oo; 
swee, kntip', kutip'; hwit, or hooit, softly. 
Nesting begins late in May, and fresh eggs may be expected from 
June 1st to about the 4th of July. Nests are placed characteristically 
in upright forks of willows, elderberry bushes, roses, etc. They are 
usually compact and artistic structures of dried grasses, hemp (the inner 
bark of dead willows), and plant-down; lined with fine grasses, horse-hair, 
feathers, and other soft substances. Not infrequently the nests are 
placed over water; and low elevations, say two or three feet from the 
ground, appear to prevail. 
Incubation lasts only twelve days, and the babies require as much 
more time to get a-wing. Thereafter the family begins to ascend the 
valleys; and by August they are invading the nurseries of their moun¬ 
taineer cousins, Empidonax wrighti. The summer vacation is an ancient 
and honored institution in California; and the birds held summer Chau- 
tauquas on the slopes of Mt. Whitney before our ancestors scalped 
Indians or smoked their seductive weed. 
No. 174 
Hammond’s Flycatcher 
A. O. U. No. 468. Empidonax hammondi (Xantus). 
Synonym.— Dirty Little Flycatcher. 
Description. — Adult: Above olive, brightest (buffy olive or dull citrine) on 
rump, shading to olive-gray on foreparts,—color continued on sides, throat (where 
paler), and breast well down, only slightly paler than back; remaining underparts 
yellow-tinged in various degrees, usually more or less sordid; pattern and color of wing 
much as in preceding species; outermost rectrix pale on outer web. Bill comparatively 
small and narrow, blackish above, lighter but very variable below. Young birds 
present a minimum of yellow below, and their wing-markings are buffy instead of whit- 
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