SPECIES 3. MUSCICJiPA NUNCIOLA* 
PEWIT FLYCATCHER. 
[Plate XIII. — Fig. 4.] 
Bartram, j). £89. — Black-cap Flycatcher, Lath. Syn. ir, 353. — 
Phoebe Flycatcher, Ibid. Sup.p. 173 . — Le gobe-mouche noiratre 
de la Caroline, Buff, iv, 541. — .drct. Zool. p. 387, Ab. 269. — 
Peale’s Museum, JSTo. 6618. 
This well-known bird is one of our earliest spring visitants, 
arriving in Pennsylvania about the first week in March, and 
continuing with us until October. I have seen them here as 
late as the twelfth of November. In the month of February I 
overtook these birds lingering in the low swampy woods of 
North and South Carolina. They were feeding on smilax, ber- 
ries and chanting occasionally their simple notes. The favour- 
ite resort of this bird is by streams of water, under, or near 
bridges, in caves, &c. Near such places he sits on a projecting 
twig, calling out pe-wee, pe-wit-titee pe-wee, for a whole morn- 
ing; darting after insects, and returning to the same twig; fre- 
quently flirting his tail, like the wagtail, though not so rapidly. 
He begins to build about the twentieth or twenty-fifth of March, 
on some projecting part under a bridge — in a cave — in an open 
well five or six feet down among the interstices of the side 
walls — often under a shed — in the low eaves of a cottage, and 
such like places. The outside is composed of mud mixed with 
moss; is generally large and solid; and lined with flax and horse 
hair. The eggs are five, pure white, with two or three dots of 
red near the great end. See fig. 4. I have known them rear 
three broods in one season. 
In a particular part of Mr. Bartram’s woods, with which I am 
acquainted, by the side of a small stream, in a cave, five or six 
^ Muscicapa fusca, Gmel. i, p. 931. — Lath. Ind. Orn. ii, p. 483. 
