16 THE CANADA FLYCATCHER. 



tracts. There they are heard while concealed among the opening blossoms, 

 giving vent to their mirth in song, perhaps thanking the Author of their 

 being for their safe return to their cherished abode. Their notes are not 

 unmusical, although simple and not attractive. Wherever a streamlet of 

 rushing water, deeply shaded by the great mountain laurel [Rhododendron 

 maximum) was met with, there was the Canada Flycatcher to. be found. 

 You might see it skipping among the branches, peeping beneath each leaf, 

 examining every chink of the bark, moving along with rapidity and elegance, 

 singing, making love to its mate, and caressing her with all the fervour of a ' 

 true sylvan lover. 



The nest of this bird which I found, was filled to the brim with four young 

 ones ready to take wing; and as it was on the 11th of August, I concluded 

 that the parents had reared another brood that season. When I put my hand 

 on them, they all left the nest and scrambled off, emitting a plaintive tsche, 

 which immediately brought the old ones. Notwithstanding all the anxious 

 cares of the latter in assisting them to hide, I procured all of them; but after 

 examining each minutely I set them at liberty. They were of a dull greyish 

 tint above, of a delicate citron colour beneath, and without any spots on the 

 breast or sides. The nest was placed in the fork of a small branch of laurel, 

 not above four feet from the ground, and resembled that of the Black-capped 

 Warbler. The outer parts were formed of several sorts of mosses, support- 

 ing a delicate bed of slender grasses, carefully disposed in a circular form, 

 and lined with hair. In another nest found near Eastport, in the State of 

 Maine, on the 22nd of May, five eggs had been laid, and the female was sit- 

 ting on them. They were of a transparent whiteness, with a few dots of a 

 bright red colour towards the large end. This nest also was placed in the 

 fork of a small bush, and immediately over a rivulet. 



The flight of the Canada Flycatcher is rather swifter than that of sylviae 

 generally is; and as it passes low amid bushes, the bird cannot be followed 

 by the eye to any considerable distance. Now and then it gives chase on 

 the wing, when the clicking of its bill is distinctly heard. By the 1st of 

 October not one remained in the Great Pine Forest, nor did I see any in 

 Labrador after the 1st of August. A few were seen in Newfoundland in the 

 course of that month, and as I returned through Nova Scotia, these birds, 

 like my own party, were all moving southward. 



Motacilla Canadensis, Linn. Syst. Nat, vol. i. p. 27. 



Canada Flycatcher, Muscicapa Canadensis, Wils. Araer. Orn., vol. iii. p. 100. 



Sylvia pardalina, Bonap. Syn., p. 79. 



Canada Flycatcher, Muscicapa Canadensis, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p. 17. 



Third quill longest, scarcely exceeding the second, fourth slightly shorter, 



