SWALLOW-TAILED FLYCATCHER. 
17 
The Swallow-tailed Flycatcher is as audacious as the Kingbird, 
attacking with unhesitating intrepidity, and turning the flight of 
the most powerful of the feathered tribe. Its note consists of a 
chirping, sounding like tsch, tsch, much resembling that of the 
Prairie Dog (Jlrctomys ludoviciana, Ord), by which it deceived 
the members of Long’s party into a belief that they were ap¬ 
proaching one of the villages of this animal. 
“A note, like that of the Prairie Dog, (writes Say,) for a 
moment induced the belief that a village of the Marmot was near; 
but we were soon undeceived, by the appearance of the beautiful 
Tyrannus forficatas, in full pursuit of a Crow. Not at first view 
recognising the bird, the fine elongated tail plumes occasionally 
diverging in a furcate manner, and again closing together, to give 
direction to the aerial evolutions of the bird, seemed like extraneous 
processes of dried grass, or twigs of a tree, adventitiously attached 
to the tail, and influenced by currents of wind. The feathered 
warrior flew forward to a tree, whence, at our too near approach, 
he descended to the earth, at a little distance, continuing at inter¬ 
vals his chirping note. This bird seems to be rather rare in this 
region; and, as the very powder within the barrels of our guns 
was wet, we were obliged to content ourselves with only a distant 
view of it.” 
The range of the Swallow-tailed Flycatcher appears to be 
limited to the trans-Mississippian territories, lying on the south¬ 
western frontier of the United States, more especially frequenting 
the scanty forests, which, with many partial, and often total inter¬ 
ruptions, extend along the Arkansaw, Canadian, and Platte rivers, 
where, in some districts, they do not seem to be very uncommon. 
VOL. I.-E 
