LEAST PEWEE FLYCATCHER. 237 



lowed a near approach without any material apprehension. As I could not 

 discover any nest, I have little doubt it was concealed either in some knot or 

 laid on some horizontal branch." 



I found this species both in Newfoundland and on the coast of Labrador in 

 considerable numbers. In the latter country, where the bushes are low and 

 the fir-trees seldom attain a height of thirty feet, I observed that it preferred 

 for its residence the narrow and confined valleys which at that season (July) 

 are clothed with luxuriant herbage, and abound in insects, to which this little 

 Flycatcher gives chase with great activity, returning, as is the well-known 

 habit of all our small species, to the twig or top of the plant which it has 

 selected for its look-out station. Two males I observed one morning, were 

 constantly engaged in pursuing each other, when at times they would mount 

 to some height in the air, there meet, snap their bills violently, separate, and 

 return to their posts. Their continued cries induced me to believe that they 

 had females and nests in the valley; and after searching a good while, I had 

 the gratification of finding one of them placed between two small twigs of a 

 bush not above four feet in height. This nest was composed of delicate dry 

 grasses and fibrous roots, so thinly arranged as to enable me to see through 

 it. It contained five eggs, so nearly resembling those of our Little Red-start 

 Flycatcher, that, had I not started the female from the nest, I should have 

 been induced to pronounce them the property of that bird. They measured 

 five and a half eighths by four-eighths, and were rather sharp at the smaller 

 end, pure white, thinly spotted, and marked with different tints of light red, 

 with a few dots of umber, principally toward the apex. Many of the young 

 were able to fly before our departure, which took place on the 12th of Au- 

 gust; and I think that the pair which I found breeding must have been later 

 than usual in arriving in that country, as a very few days afterwards I found 

 a good number fully fledged, and travelling along the shore of St. George's 

 Bay in Newfoundland. This species may perhaps breed in Nova Scotia, as 

 I have seen a specimen obtained there in the collection of my young friend 

 Thomas M'Culloch, Esq. of Halifax. 



Tyranntjla pusilla, Little Tyrant Flycatcher, Swains, and Rich. F. Bor. Amer., vol. 



ii. p. 144. 

 Little Tyrant Flycatcher, Muscicapa pusilla, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. v. p. 288. 



Third quill longest, fourth scarcely shorter, second nearly one-twelfth 

 shorter, and exceeding the first by three and a quarter twelfths; tail slightly 

 emarginate; upper parts light greenish-brown; loral band whitish, a narrow 

 pale ring surrounding the eye; wings olive-brown, with two bands of dull 

 white, secondaries margined with the same; tail olive-brown, the lateral 



Vol. I. 36 



