The Wright Flycatcher 
hour, July 12th, nesting must be speedily resumed. The discarded mate 
had been recalled from exile, and he was joyously shouting the mating 
call, whew hit' or hit' whew hit' , interspersing his emphatic declaration 
with a variety of lesser notes, and the ever present, infallibly character¬ 
istic swit. The secret was out. Thenceforth it was to be plain sailing. 
The male wrighti on his native mountain-side is a bristling, active, 
and self-important creature, albeit excessively wary. He has an extensive 
repertory of notes, entirely unlike any uttered by the female, and of so 
varied a character as to have given rise to great confusion. The two 
syllabled pewick' or pusek' note, especially, is very like that of hammondi, 
although it is undoubtedly milder and less sharply accented. This note 
is susceptible of great variation, especially when uttered in groups of 
three: Pusek' — pitic’ — squiz'ik; sit'ick — chit'ick—sue whit'; pssit pewick 
pussett'. It is, however, the high-pitched and resonant whew hit' call 
which startles the woods and marks the movements of the male at the 
mating season. This note is essentially a mating, or seeking, call; and 
it is uttered successively from prominent tree-tops over a wide range 
of territory, in much the same fashion as the challenge song of the Ruby- 
crowned Kinglet, which is to be heard in the same woods. Judged by 
this staunch character, Grinnell is undoubtedly right in withdrawing 
his earlier contention that the breeding birds of the southern mountain 
ranges are Gray Flycatchers ( E. griseus) , 1 for the whew hit' notes of birds 
heard in the San Jacintos have precisely the same lilt as those heard 
in the Warners, and are utterly unlike the efforts of any other known 
species. 
In migrations, these birds may be found almost anywhere. In the 
great wave which struck the east-and-west-stretching Ventura-Gaviota 
coast, in late April, 1912, Wright Flycatchers were a prominent factor. 
Keeping always a certain fly-catching distance from their fellows, they 
were, nevertheless, so thickly planted that some had to accept very 
humble perches,—mustard patches, fence-rails, willow thickets, or even 
boulders and driftwood. For the most part, they are silent on migration, 
and it is only when one can be cajoled into remarking swit that the student 
may feel sure of his ground. One of these travelers, “snapped” in the 
mustard, was an Empidonax, no doubt of that; but whether trailli, 
wrighti, or hammondi, no man will ever know. 
1 “A Distributional List of the Birds of California,” Pac. Coast Avifauna, No. n, 1915. P- 93 - 
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