The Traill Flycatcher {Empidonax traiiiu) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Description. — Adult: Above olive, dark olive-green, or olive-brown, brown 

 of head darker and unmistakable ; wrings and tail fuscous ; wing-coverts tipped 

 and inner quills margined w^ith grayish (pale buffy or fulvous) ; pattern of edging 

 on secondaries similar to that of preceding species, but less distinct — yellow not 

 so abrupt, paler, etc. ; wing-tip formed by second, third and fourth primaries ; 

 first usually shorter than fifth ; below sordid white, tinged on breast and sides 

 with brownish gray, and with a faint wash of sulphur-yellow behind; bill dark 

 above, light brown below. Immature: Browner above, more yellow below : 

 wing-bands deep bufify or ochraceous. Length 5.75-6.25 (146.1-158.8) : wing 

 2.84 (72.1) ; tail 2.22 (56.4) ; bill from nostril .36 (9.1) ; width at base .30 (7.6). 

 Female not so long, but other dimensions substantially the same. 



Recognition Marks. — Warbler to small Sparrow size; as compared with the 

 preceding species, a general note of brownness observable ; other diagnostic dif- 

 ferences not easy, nor individually constant; habits (|uite different; a dweller in 

 swamps and lowland thickets. 



Nest, a rather bulky but neatly-turned cup of plant-fibres bark-strips, grass, 

 etc., carefully lined with fine grasses ; placed three to ten feet up, in crotch of 

 bush or sapling of lowland thicket or swamp. Eggs, 3 or 4, not certainly dis- 

 tinguishable from those of preceding species. Av. size, .70 x .54 (17.8x13.7). 



General Range. — W estern North America from the Mississippi Valley (Ohio, 

 IlHnois, and Michigan) to the Pacific and from the Fur Countries south into 

 Mexico. 



EARLY in June your morning walk along the river bank is likely to be 

 interrupted by an imperative szvee-chee, issuing from the top of a hackberry 

 sapling hard by. This bird sits uneasily upon her perch and ai)pears anxious, 

 worried. Only dire extremity, you may be sure, could induce her to venture 

 so near this unknown monster, man. Su'ee-chee, she challenges again, and then 

 amazed at her own temerity, vanishes into the thicket to be seen no more. There 

 is a nest near, but the owner has done her duty in proclaiming the fact, and she 

 will not lead further in the search. At about the level of your head in some 

 willow or alder clump, or mayhap in a hackberry like the one upon which she 

 sat, you will find a neat, substantial cup of hemp and grasses, bound tightly to 

 an upright fork. The nest might have been a Yellow^ Warbler's, except that 

 it is a trifle bulkier and not so well concealed. It lacks, too, the cotton lining 

 which is indispensable to the Warbler home. The eggs might have been those 

 of an Acadian Flycatcher, but the situation of the nest is entirely different, and 

 its architecture as far removed as Gothic from Maori. ,Or again the nests of 

 the two species may be happily related by the comparison of cup and saucer. 

 The cup of the Traill Flycatcher is normally tw^o inches across by one and a 

 half deep, inside. 



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