The Wright Flycatcher 
before incubation had set in. Perhaps it was better, though, for the 
weather was raw, and she had all the work to do alone, apparently. 
That was the astonishing thing. This timid creature, battling 
with the elements, had no comfort of her mate. Evidently he was dead, 
for never once in our constant visits did we see any other Flycatcher 
than the patient female within a hundred yards of this nest. Other 
Flycatchers of some sort there were, however, in a distant grove. One 
little fellow, as merry as a partridge, kept to the tops of distant dead 
trees, perching and flying after the manner of the Feast Flycatcher 
(E. minimus ), and singing persistently: Pusst pesek' pewit’—pssit pewick' 
pussett' —etc. 
On the ioth of July, 1912, while 
in camp in a grove of White-bark 
Pines ( Pinus albicaulis) in a mag¬ 
nificent cirque near Eagle Peak, in 
the Warner Mountain, I saw a 
Wright Flycatcher settle in a neigh¬ 
boring tree, to which the good wife 
had tied the camp clothes-line. The 
thing was incredible. We had been 
in camp there for ten days. One 
could have sat at the “dining room” 
table and snapped a prune pit into 
that particular cluster of pine 
needles. Yet there sat Mother 
Wright on four fresh eggs in a nest 
which she had built under our un¬ 
suspecting noses. We had no sus¬ 
picion even of amorous traffic in our 
near neighborhood, let alone of 
house-building. 
This nest was closely watched 
on the ensuing day, and we were sure 
that no other bird than the female 
wrighti came near the nest. To all 
appearances she was another widow. 
The nest was then collected, the 
female interposing only a flood of 
soft swits uttered with unusual em¬ 
phasis and, once, a sort of tittering cry, like that of the Western Wood 
Pewee, though weaker. On the day following there was a great stir of 
activity on the part of the Wright Flycatchers. In view of the late 
894 
Taken in Inyo County Photo by the Author 
WE COULD DO ALMOST ANYTHING WITH HER 
