14 
QUARTERLY BULLETIN, 
ON TWO EMPIDONACES, TEAILLII AND ACADICUS . 
BY H. w. HENSHAW. 
Perhaps no one group of North American birds has given 
rise to more confusion, and perplexing errors of identification 
than our small Flycatchers. More from this reason than from 
any other cause, our knowledge of the exact range of several of 
them is still far from being as complete as would be desirable. 
With a few words on this subject I shall pass to the main object 
of this paper, which was to call attention to certain differences, 
between the nests of the two species mentioned above, which it 
seems to me have never been sufficiently emphasized in the dis- 
tinction of the two birds, though by no means unknown before. 
In New England, if the Acadian Flycatcher be found at all, 
it is in the character of a very rare visitant, and I am inclined 
to believe that all of the various quotations assigning this bird 
to a place in the New England fauna may be set down as in- 
stances of mistaken identification, not excepting the evidence 
of Mr. J. A. Allen, who states that E acadicus is a rare summer 
visitant near Springfield, Mass. I am inclined to think that Mr. 
Allen’s acadicus^ were really Traillii^ more especially since, in 
recounting the habits, he says, “ it breeds in swamps and thick- 
ets, which are its exclusive haunts.” This accords perfectly 
with the habits of E. and is utterly at variance with 
those of acadicus,, as elsewhere shown.* 
As at present made out the Acadian Flycatcher reaches no 
further north along the coast than New Jersey. Nor in the in- 
terior does its range appear to extend much if any higher. 
Going west we find it occurs in about the same latitude in Penn- 
sylvania, in Ohio, where it is numerons about Columbus, (Dr. 
J. M. Wheaton,) and in southern Illinois, as shown by Messrs. 
Ridgway and Nelson ; while the Mississippi may be looked upon 
as marking about its western limit. 
We find, however, one quotation from further west, that of 
Mr. Allen of eastern Kansas. In its distribution the Traill’s 
Flycatcher is decidedly more northern, though the southern line 
^Since penning the above I understand that Mr. Allen allows this view to 
be correct. 
