55 



RED-EYED FLYCATCHER. 

 SYLVIA OLIVACEA. 

 [Plate XII.— Fig. 2.] 



Linn. Syst. I, p. 327, 14. — Gobe-moiiche de la Caroline et de la Jamaique, Buff. IV,/;. 539. 

 Edw. t. 253. — Catesb. t. 54. — Lath. Syn. Ill, p. 351, No. 52. — Muscicapa sylvicola^ 

 Bartram,/?. 290. — Peale's Museum, No. 6675. 



THIS is a numerous species, tho coniftiied chiefly to the woods 

 and forests, and, like all the rest of its tribe that visit Pennsylva- 

 nia, is a bird of passage. It arrives here late in April; has a loud, 

 lively and energetic song, which it continues, as it hunts among the 

 thick foliage, sometimes for an hour with little intermission. In 

 the months of May, June, and to the middle of July, it is the most 

 distinguishable of all the other warblers of the forest ; and even in 

 August, long after the rest have almost all become mute, the notes 

 of the Red-eyed Flycatcher are frequently heard with unabated 

 spirit. These notes are in short, emphatical bars, of two, three, 

 or four syllables. In Jamaica, where this bird winters, and is pro- 

 bably also resident, it is called, as Sloan informs us, " Whip-Tom- 

 Kelly," from an imagined resemblance of its notes to these words. 

 And indeed, on attentively listening for some time to this bird in 

 his full ardor of song, it requires but little of imagination to fancy 

 that you hear it pronounce these words, "Tom Kelly! Whip Tom 

 Kelly !" very distinctly. It inhabits from Georgia to the river St. 

 Lawrence, leaving Pennsylvania about the middle of September. 



This bird builds in the month of May a small neat pensile 

 nest, generally suspended between two twigs of a young dogwood 

 or other small sapling. It is hung by the two upper edges, seldom 

 at a greater height than four or five feet from the ground. It is 



