117 



YELLOW-THROATED FLYCATCHER. 

 MUSCICAPA SYLVICOLA. 

 [Plate Vn.— Fig. 3.] 



Peale's ilf?y5«/w2, Ko. 6827. 



THIS summer species is found chiefly in the woods^ hunting 

 among the high branches ; and has an indolent and plaintive note, 

 which it repeats with some little variation^ every ten or twelve se- 

 conds, like preeo — preea, &c. It is often heard in company with the 

 Red-eyed Flycatcher (Muscicapa olivacea), or Whip-Tom-Kelly of 

 Jamaica; the loud energetic notes of the latter, mingling with the 

 soft languid warble of the former, producing an agreeable effect, 

 particularly during the burning heat of noon, when almost every 

 other songster but these two is silent. Those who loiter thro the 

 shades of our magnificent forests at that hour, will easily recognise 

 both species. It arrives from the south early in May; and returns 

 again with its young about the middle of September. Its nest, 

 which is sometimes fixed on the upper side of a limb, sometimes 

 on a horizontal branch among the twigs, generally on a tree, is 

 composed outwardly of thin strips of the bark of grape-vines, moss, 

 lichens, &c. and lined with fine fibres of such like substances ; the 

 eggs, usually four, are white, thinly dotted with black, chiefly near 

 the great end. Winged insects are its principal food. 



Whether this species has been described before or not I must 

 leave to the sagacity of the reader, who has the opportunity of exa- 

 mining European works of this kind, to discover.^ I have met with 



* See " Orange-throated Warbler," Lath. Syn. II, 481, 103. 



H h 



