166 



WHITE-EYED FLYCATCHER. 

 MUSCICAPA CANTATRIX. 

 [Plate XVHI.— Fig. 6.] 



Muscicapa noveboracensis, Gmel. Syst. I, p. 947. — Hanging Flycatcher, Lath. Syn. Supp. 

 p. I14<.—Arct. Zool p. 389, No. 274. — Muscicapa cantatrix, the little Domestic Flycatcher^ 

 or Green JVren, Bartram, />. 290. — Peale's Museum, JVo. 6778. 



THIS is another of the Cow-bird's adopted nurses ; a lively, 

 active, and sociable little bird, possessing a strong voice for its 

 size, and a great variety of notes ; and singing with little intermis- 

 sion, from its first arrival about the middle of April, to a little be- 

 fore its departure in September. On the twenty-seventh of Fe- 

 bruary I heard this bird in the southern parts of the state of Geor- 

 gia, in considerable numbers, singing with great vivacity. They 

 had only arrived a few days before. Its arrival in Pennsylvania, 

 after an interval of seven weeks, is a proof that our birds of pas- 

 sage, particularly the smaller species, do not migrate at once from 

 south to north; but progress daily, keeping company, as it were, 

 with the advances of spring. It has been observed in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Savannah so late as the middle of November ; and 

 probably winters in Mexico, and the West Indies. 



This bird builds a very neat little nest, often in the figure of 

 an inverted cone; it is suspended by the upper edge of the two 

 sides, on the circular bend of a prickly vine, a species of smilax 

 that generally grows in low^ thickets. Outwardly it is constructed 

 of various light materials, bits of rotten wood, fibres of dry stalks 

 of weeds, pieces of paper, commonly newspapers, an article almost 

 always found about its nest, so that some of my friends have given 

 it the name of the Politician; all these substances are interwoven 



