264 
FLYCATCHERS 
fine straws, and rootlets, lined with fine fibers. Eggs: 3 or 4, oval, buff 
or dull white. 
Mr. R. D. Lusk, who discovered the nest of the buff-breasted in 
the Chiricahua Mountains, found the bird well named, the bright 
Arizona sunlight bringing out the buff of its breast. He says that 
the soft pit, pit', of a pair he was watching was varied by a great 
number of other notes, among them the chicky-whew of the male. 
GENUS PYROCEPHALUS. 
471. Pyrocephalus rubineus mexicanus ( Scl. ). Vermilion 
Flycatcher. 
Head of male with full rounded crest; bill slender, narrow at base much 
as in Sayornis ; tail nearly even, of broad feathers ; tarsus scarcely longer 
than middle toe with claw. Adult male: erectile crown and under parts 
brilliant scarlet; upper parts grayish brown, darker on wings and tail. 
Adult female: upper parts brownish gray; under parts whitish, breast 
streaked with gray; belly tinged with yellow, salmon, or red. Immature 
male: like adult female, but with red appearing in crown and on breast. 
Young: upper parts brownish gray, feathers edged with whitish; under 
parts whitish, streaked across breast, without reddish tinge on belly. A 
rare melanistic phase of plumage is uniform dark brown tinged in male 
with wine purple on crown and lower parts. Length: 5.50-6.25, wing 3.20- 
3.40, tail 2.60-2.80. 
Distribution. — Breeds in Lower Sonoran and Tropical zones from south¬ 
western Utah through southern New Mexico, Arizona, southwestern Texas, 
southern California, and Lower California to Central America ; accidental 
in Florida. 
Nest. — Frail and flimsy, made of short twigs, cocoons, down, plant 
tops and fiber, lined with feathers, wool, hair, fur, or down, saddled on a 
horizontal fork 6 to 50 feet from the ground in mesquite, palo verde, cot¬ 
tonwood, oak, and rarely willow. Eggs: 2 or 3, cream or buff, marked most 
heavily about the larger end with bold irregular blotches and spots of 
brown and purple. 
Food. — Insects, including grasshoppers and small beetles. 
Of all the rare Mexican birds seen in southern Arizona and Texas 
the vermilion flycatcher is the gem, his brilliant scarlet body glow¬ 
ing red even in the dim twilight. 
In an ‘oak mott’ of southern Texas, where we found jackdaws 
and scissor-tail flycatchers, the little Pyrocephalus was at home the 
last of April, so he doubtless nested there too. One of his favorite 
perches was a dead oak twig close to the ground, and in making his 
sallies for insects he swept out over the flower-covered field we were 
trying to photograph, his image in the camera more beautiful than 
the flowers themselves. 
When flycatching he often hovered over the grass in the regula¬ 
tion flycatcher way, but besides he had a unique nuptial performance 
of his own. When high in the air he would puff out the red feath¬ 
ers of his breast and hold himself up, twittering volubly as long as 
