78 



PEWIT FLYCATCHER. 

 MUSCICAPA NUNCIOLA, 

 [Plate XIII.— Fig. 4.] 



Bartram, p. 289 Black-cap Flycatcher, Lath. Syn. II, 353. — Phoebe Flycatcher, Ibid. 



Sup. p. 173. — Le gobe-mouche noiratre de la Caroline, Buff. IV, 541. — Jrct. Zool. p. 387, 

 JVo. 269. — Peale's Museum, JVo. 6618. 



THIS well-known bird is one of our earliest spring visitants, 

 arriving in Pennsylvania about the first week in March, and con- 

 tinuing with us until October. I have seen them here as late as 

 the twelfth of November. In the month of February I overtook 

 these birds lingering in the low swampy woods of North and South 

 Carolina. They were feeding on smilax berries, and chanting oc- 

 casionally their simple notes. The favorite resort of this bird is 

 by streams of water, under, or near bridges, in caves, &c. Near 

 such places he sits on a projecting twig, calling out pe-wee, pe-wit- 

 titee pe-ivee, for a whole morning; darting after insects, and return- 

 ing to the same twig; frequently flirting his tail, like the Wagtail, 

 tho not so rapidly. He begins to build about the twentieth or 

 twenty-fifth of March, on some projecting part under a bridge — 

 in a cave — in an open well five or six feet down among the inter- 

 stices of the side walls — often under a shed — in the low eaves of a 

 cottage, and such like places. The outside is composed of mud 

 mixed with moss; is generally large and solid; and lined with flax 

 and horse hair. The eggs are five, pure white, with two or three 

 dots of red near the great end. See fig. 4. I have known them rear 

 three brood in one season. 



In a particular part of Mr. Bartram's woods with which I am 

 acquainted, by the side of a small stream, in a cave, five or six feet 



