TRAILL’S FLYCATCHER. 375 
The eggs vary from two to four, and I have often seen nests with a sin- 
gle egg well advanced in incubation, or a single young bird, and believe 
from the position of the nest, towards the end of a long horizontal or de- 
clining limb, that eggs frequently fall from it when shaken by the wind. 
They are of a light yellowish-buff color, with a decided flesh colored tint 
when fresh, and rather sparsely spotted with light-brown. They measure 
18 by .56. 
The Acadian Flycatcher is a favorite nurse of the Cow-bird; most nests 
contain one egg of this parasite, and I have seen asmanyasfour. Onone 
occasion I saw a Cow-bird in the effort to deposit her egg in this nest, 
turn out all the eggs, the twig on which the nest was placed yielding to 
her weight. 
HMPIDONAX TRAILLI (Aud.) Baird. 
Trail’s Elycatcher. 
Tyrannus traillii, READ, Fam. Visitor, iii, 1853, 359; Prose. Phila. Acad. Nat. Sci., vi, 1853, 
395. 
Empidonax trailii, KIRKPATRICK, Ohio Farmer, ix, 1860, 107. 
Empidonax traillti, WHEATON, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1860, 1861, 362, 373 ; Reprint, 4,15; 
Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 1875, 568; Reprint, 8.i— HENSHAW, 
Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, i, 1676, 14. 
Empidonax traili, LANGDON, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 10.—ALLEN, apud Coues, Bull. 
Nutt, Orn. Club, v. 1880, 24. 
Empidonax pusillus var. trailli, LANGDON, Revised List, Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 
177; Reprint, 11. 
Traill’s Flycatcher, KiRTLAND, Am. Journ. Sci. and Arts, xiii, 1852, 218. 
Muscicapa traillii, AUDUBON, Orn. Biog., i, 1832, 236. 
Tyrannus traillii, NUTTALL, Man, i, 1840, 323. 
Empidonax traillii, BarrD, Birds of N. Am., 1858, 193. 
Empidonax pusillus var. trailli, BAIRD, BREWER and Ripeéway, N. Am. Birds, ii, 1874, 
369, 
Above olive brown, lighter and duller brownish posteriorly, darker anteriorly, owing 
to obviously dusky centres of the coronal feathers; below, nearly as in acadicus, but 
darker, the olive-gray shading quite acroas the breast; wing-markings grayish-white 
with alight yellowish or tawny shade; under mandible pale; upper mandible and feet . 
black. Averaging a little leas than acadicus, 54-6; wing, 23-22, more rounded, its tip only 
reaching about # of an inch beyond the secondaries, formed by 2d, 3d and 4th quills as 
before, but 5th not so much shorter (hardly or not + of an inch), the ist ranging between 
Sth and 6th; tail, 24; tarsus, # as before, but middle toe and claw, three-fifths, the 
feet thus differently proportioned owing to length of the toes. 
Habitat, Eastern United States and British Provinces, west to the central plains, 
whence to the Pacific replaced by var. pusillus. South to New Grenada. 
Common summer resident in Central Ohio from May to September. 
Breeds. Traill’s Flycatcher, was first observed in this state by Dr. 
