Their usual call-note is a sharp disagreeable squeak, which, once known, is easily recognized. Besides this it has a monotonous succession of squeaking, harsh notes, only a little less unpleasant. They raise but one brood in a season, and remain together in a family group of from six to eight until they leave, in the middle of September.
During the early summer this species feeds chiefly upon insects of various kinds, which it catches with great facility, skill, and assiduity; afterwards, as if from choice, it chiefly eats ripe berries of various kinds of shrubs and plants, among which those of the poke-weed and the huckleberry are most noticeable. It nests altogether in hollows in trees, stumps, or limbs. It lines the bottoms of these hollows with a great variety of miscellaneous materials, and in quantities that vary with the size and shape of the place to be occupied. These beds are composed of loose hay, feathers, the hair of various small quadrupeds, etc., while the exuviæ of snakes are almost always to be met with.
The eggs, four, five, or six in number, are peculiar and noticeably varied and beautiful in their style of markings, varying also somewhat in shape. Generally they are nearly spherical, and equally obtuse at either end. Occasionally they are an oblong oval, one end a very little more tapering than the other. Their ground-color is a beautiful light buff, rather than a cream-color, over which are waving lines, marblings, markings, and dots of a brilliant purple, and others of a more obscure shading. The lines are variously distributed, generally running from one pole of the egg to the other with striking effect, as if laid on with the delicate brush of an artist. In some eggs the whole surface is so closely covered with these intercrossing and waving lines, blending with the obscure cloudings of lilac, as nearly to conceal the ground. Usually the buff color is conspicuously apparent, and sets off the purple lines with great effect.
An oblong-oval egg from New Jersey measures 1.10 inches in length by .70 of an inch in breadth. A more nearly spherical egg from Florida measures
.90 by .75 of an inch. These well represent the two extremes. Their average is about 1 inch by .75 of an inch.
The eggs of all the members of this genus have a remarkable similarity, and can scarcely be mistaken for those of any other group.
Myiarchus crinitus, var. cinerascens, Lawr.
ASH-THROATED FLYCATCHER.
Tyrannula cinerascens, Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. N. Hist. V, Sept. 1851, 109. Myiarchus cinerascens, Scl. List, 1862, 133.—Ib. P. Z. S. 1871, 84.—Coues, Pr. A. N. S. July, 1872, 69. Myiarchus mexicanus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 179, pl. 5.—Heerm. X, S, 37, pl. v.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 316. Myiarchus mexicanus, var. pertinax, Baird, P. A. N. S. 1859, 303 (Cape St. Lucas).
Sp. Char. Bill black, the width opposite the nostrils not half the length of culmen. Head crested. Tail even, the lateral feathers slightly shorter. Second, third, and fourth quills longest; first rather shorter than the seventh. Above dull grayish-olive; the centres of the feathers rather darker; the crown, rump, and upper tail-coverts tinged with brownish. The forehead and sides of the head and neck grayish-ash; the chin, throat, and forepart of the breast ashy-white; the middle of the breast white; the rest of the under parts very pale sulphur-yellow; wings and tail brown. Two bands across the wing, with outer edges of secondaries and tertials, dull white; the outer edges of the primaries light chestnut-brown (except towards the tip and on the outer feather); the inner edges tinged with the same. Whole of middle tail-feathers, with the outer webs (only) and the ends of the others brown; the rest of the inner webs reddish-chestnut, the outer web of exterior feather yellowish-white. Legs and bill black; lower mandible brownish at the base. Length about 8.00; wing, 4.00; tail, 4.10; tarsus, .90.