COOPER'S FLYCATCHER-OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER. 213 



The discovery of this species is due to my amiable and learned friend 

 Nuttall, part of whose account of its habits I have pleasure in laying before 

 you. When, a few years ago, I rambled, as I do now, in quest of knowledge, 

 scarcely an individual could be found in the United States conversant with 

 birds. At the present day there are many, with whom I am personally 

 acquainted, besides others, who have fully proved their zeal and activity by 

 their discoveries and descriptions. 



On the 8th of August, 1832, while walking out from Boston towards the 

 country seat of the Honourable Thomas H. Perkins, along with my friend 

 Nuttalx, we were suddenly saluted with the note of this bird. As I had 

 never seen it, I leaped over the fence beside us, and cautiously approached 

 the tree on which a male was perched and singing. Desiring my friend to 

 go in search of a gun, I watched the motions of the devoted bird. He re- 

 turned with a large musket, a cow's horn filled with powder, and a handful 

 of shot nearly as large as peas; but, just as I commenced charging this curious 

 piece, I discovered that it was flintless ! We were nearly a mile distant from 

 Mr. Perkins' house, but as we were resolved to have the bird, we proceed- 

 ed to it with all despatch, procured a gun, and returning to the tree, found 

 the Flycatcher, examined its flight and manners for awhile, and at length 

 shot it. As the representative of a species, I made a drawing of this indi- 

 vidual, which you will find copied in the plate indicated above. But now 

 let us attend to Nuttall's account. 



"This undescribed species, which appertains to the group of Pewees, was 

 obtained in the woods of Mount Auburn, in this vicinity, by Mr. John 

 Bethune, of Cambridge, on the 7th of June, 1830. This and the second 

 specimen acquired soon afterwards, were females on the point of incubation. 

 A third individual of the same sex was killed on the 21st of June, 1831. 

 They were all of them fat, and had their stomach filled with torn fragments 

 of wild bees, wasps, and other similar insects. I have watched the motions 

 of two other living individuals, who appeared tyrannical and quarrelsome, 

 even with each other. The attack was always accompanied with a whining 

 querulous twitter. Their dispute was apparently, like that of savages, about 

 the rights of their respective hunting-grounds. One of the birds, the female, 

 whom I usually saw alone, was uncommonly sedentary. The territory she 

 seemed determined to claim was circumscribed by the tops of a cluster of 

 Virginian junipers or red cedars, and an adjoining elm and decayed cherry- 

 tree. From this sovereign station, in the solitude of a barren and sandy 

 piece of forest, adjoining Mount Auburn, she kept a sharp look-out for pass- 

 ing insects, and pursued them with great vigour and success as soon as they 

 appeared, sometimes chasing them to the ground, and generally resuming 

 her perch with an additional mouthful, which she swallowed at leisure. On 



