YELLOW-THROATED FLYCATCHER. 
143 
always on the lookout for insects ; darts about from one part of the tree 
to another with hanging wings and erected fail, making a feeble chirp- 
ings, tsee, tsee, no louder than a mouse. Though so small in itself, it is 
ambitious of hunting on the highest branches, and is seldom seen among 
the humbler thickets. It remains with us until the twentieth or twenty- 
eighth of September, after which we see no more of it until the succeed- 
ing spring. I observed this bird near Savannah, in Georgia, early in 
March ; but it does not winter even in the southern parts of that state. 
The length of this species is four inches and a half, extent six and a 
half ; front and line over the eye black ; bill black, very slender, over- 
hanging at the tip, notched, broad, and furnished with bristles at the 
base ; the color of the plumage above is a light bluish gray, bluest on 
the head, below bluish white ; tail longer than the body, a little rounded 
and black, except the exterior feathers, which are almost all white, and 
the next two also tipped with white ; tail coverts black ; wings brownish 
black, some of the secondaries next the body edged with white ; legs 
extremely slender, about three-fourths of an inch long, and of a bluish 
black color. The female is distinguished by wanting the black line 
round the front. 
The food of this bird is small winged insects and their larvae, but 
particularly the former, which it seems almost always in pursuit of. 
Species VIII. MUSCICAPA SVLVICOLA* 
YELLOW-THROATED FLYCATCHER. 
[Plate VII. Fig. 3.] 
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 seconds, like 
preeo — -preea, &c. It is often heard in company with the Red-eyed Fly- 
catcher (3£uscicapa 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 burn- 
ing heat of noon, when almost every other songster but these two is 
silent. Those who loiter through the shades of our magnificent forests 
at that hour, ivill 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 
* Vireo Jlavifrons, Ois. de I' Am. Sept. Vieillot, pi. 54. 
