212 COOPER'S FLYCATCHER-OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER. 



are conspicuous. While in the woods, its flight is peculiarly rapid: it dashes 

 through the upper branches of the tallest trees like an arrow, and often 

 sweeps from this elevated range close to the earth, to seize an insect, which 

 it has espied issuing from among the grass or the fallen leaves. 



From Texas northward, generally distributed. Abundant. Migratory. 



Great Crested Flycatcher, Muscicapa crinita, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. ii. p. 75. 

 Muscicapa crinita, Bonap. Syn., p. 67. 

 Great Crested Flycatcher, Nutt. Man., vol. i. p. 271. 



Great Crested Flycatcher, Muscicapa crinita, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p. 176; vol. v. 

 p. 423. 



Third quill longest, first and sixth equal; upper parts dull greenish-olive; 

 quills and coverts dark brown, the primaries margined with light red, the 

 secondaries with yellowish-white, of which there are two bars across the 

 wing, formed by the tips of the secondary coverts and first row of small 

 coverts; inner webs of the tail feathers, except the two middle, light red; 

 margins of inner webs of quills tinged with the same; fore neck and sides of 

 the head greyish-blue, the rest of the lower parts yellow. Female similar. 



Male, 81, 13. 



COOPER'S FLYCATCHER— OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER. 



Muscicapa Coopeki, Nuttall. 



PLATE LVIII.— Male and Female. 



It is difficult, for me at least, to understand how we should now have in 

 the United States so many birds which, not more than twenty years ago, 

 were nowhere to be found in our country. Of these new-comers the Olive- 

 sided Flycatcher is one, and one, too, whose size and song render it very 

 conspicuous among its kindred. That birds should thus suddenly make their 

 appearance, and at once diffuse themselves over almost the whole of the 

 country, is indeed a very curious fact; and were similar changes to take place 

 in the other tribes of animals, and in other countries, the arrangements of 

 systematic writers would have to undergo corresponding revolutions, a cir- 

 cumstance which would tend to add to the confusion arising from the con- 

 tinual shiftings, combinations, disseverings, abrasions of names, and alterations 

 of method, which the interpreters of nature are pleased to dignify with the 

 name of science. 





