142 
BLUE-GRAY FLYCATCHER. 
exterior tail feathers fine yellow, tipped with dark brown ; wings and 
back greenish olive ; tail coverts blackish, tipped with ash ; belly dull 
white ; no white or yellow on the wings ; legs dirty purplish brown ; bill 
black. 
The Redstart extends very generally over the United States ; having 
myself seen it on the borders of Canada, and also in the Mississippi 
territory. 
This species has the constant habit of flirting its expanded tail from 
side to side as it runs along the branches, with its head levelled almost 
in a line with its body ; occasionally shooting off after winged insects, 
in a downward zigzag direction, and with admirable dexterity, snapping 
its bill as it descends. Its notes are few and feeble, repeated at short 
intervals as it darts among the foliage ; having at some times a resem- 
blance to the sounds sic sic saic ; at others of weesy weesy iveesy ; which 
last seems to be its call for the female, while the former appears to be 
its most common note. 
Species VII. MUSCICAPA CJEBULEA. 
BLUE-GRAY FLYCATCHER. 
[Plate XVIII. Fig. 5.] 
Motacilla ccerulea, Turton, Syst. i., p. f>12. — Blue Flycatcher, Edw. PI. 302. — 
Regulus griseus, the little Bluish Gray Wren, Bartraji, p. 291. — Le Figuier gris 
de fer, Buff, v., p. 309.— Ccerulean Warbler, Arct. Zool. n., No. 29 ( J.— Lath. 
Syn. vi., p. 490, No. 127. 
This diminutive species, but for the length of the tail, would rank 
next to our Humming-bird in magnitude. It is a very dexterous Fly- 
catcher, and has also something of the manners of the Titmouse, with 
whom, in early spring and fall, it frequently associates. It arrives in 
Pennsylvania from the south about the middle of April ; and about the 
beginning of May builds its nest, which it generally fixes among the 
twigs of a tree, sometimes at the height of ten feet from the ground, 
sometimes fifty feet high, on the extremities of the tops of a high tree 
in the woods. This nest is formed of very slight and perishable mate- 
rials, the husks of buds, stems of old leaves, withered blossoms of weeds, 
down from the stalks of fern, coated on the outside with gray lichen, 
and lined with a few horse hairs. Yet in this frail receptacle, which one 
would think scarcely sufficient to admit the body of the owner, and sus- 
tain even its weight, does the female Cow-bird venture to deposit her 
egg ; and to the management of these pigmy nurses leaves the fate of 
her helpless young. The motions of this little bird are quick ; he seems 
