Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 
out of the south. It might be a leaf that is being blown about, 
touched by the sunshine filtering through the trees, and partly 
shaded by the young foliage casting its first shadows. 
Woodlands, through which small streams meander lazily, 
inviting swarms of insects to their boggy shores, make ideal 
hunting grounds for the Acadian flycatcher. It chooses a low 
rather than a high, conspicuous perch, that other members of its 
family invariably select; and from such a lookout it may be seen 
launching into the air after the passing gnat — darting downward, 
then suddenly mounting upward in its aerial hunt, the vigorous 
clicks of the beak as it closes over its tiny victims testifying to 
the bird’s unerring aim and its hearty appetite. 
While perching, a constant tail-twitching is kept up; and a 
faint, fretful ‘ ‘ mbee-kee, tsbee-kee ’ ’ escapes the bird when inac- 
tively waiting for a dinner to heave in sight. 
In the Middle Atlantic States its peeping sound and the click- 
ing of its particolored bill are infrequently heard in the village 
streets in the autumn, when the shy and solitary birds are enticed 
from the deep woods by a prospect of a more plentiful diet of 
insects, attracted by the fruit in orchards and gardens. 
Never far from the ground, on two or more parallel branches, 
the shallow, unsubstantial nest is laid. Some one has cleverly 
described it as “a tuft of hay caught by the limb from a load 
driven under it,” but this description omits all mention of the 
quantities of blossoms that must be gathered to line the cradle 
for the tiny, pure white eggs. 
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 
(Empidonax flaviventris) Flycatcher family 
Length — 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English 
sparrow. 
Male — Rather dark, but true olive-green above. Throat and 
breast yellowish olive, shading into pale yellow underneath, 
including wing linings and under tail coverts. Wings have 
yellowish bars. Whitish ring around eye. Upper part of 
bill black, under part whitish or flesh-colored. 
Female — Smaller, with brighter yellow under parts and more 
decidedly yellow wing-bars. 
Range — North America, from Labrador to Panama, and westward 
from the Atlantic to the plains. Winters in Central America. 
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