In Arizona, Dr. Coues found this Flycatcher common throughout the Territory. At Fort Whipple it was a summer resident. It was one of the first of the migratory birds to make its appearance in spring, arriving early in March, and remained among the last, staying until October. It winters in the Colorado Valley and the southern portions of the Territory generally. He found it frequenting almost exclusively open plains, in stunted chaparral and sage brush. In some other points of habits it is said to differ remarkably from our other Flycatchers. It does not habitually frequent cañons,
rocky gorges, and secluded banks of streams, as does S. fuscus, nor does it inhabit forests, like other Flycatchers.
Dr. Cooper regards this bird as mostly a winter visitor in the southern and western parts of California, where he has seen none later than March. In summer it is said to migrate to the great interior plains as far to the north as latitude 60°. It arrives from the north at Los Angeles in September, and perhaps earlier in the northern part of the State, and possibly breeds there east of the Sierras. Mr. Allen found it common in Colorado Territory, among the mountains.
In the arid portions of the Great Basin this species was often seen by Mr. Ridgway. In its natural state it preferred rocky shores of lakes or rivers, or similar places in the cañons of the mountains, where it attached its bulky down-lined nests to the inside of small caves or recesses in the rocks, usually building them upon a small projecting shelf. Wherever man has erected a building in those desert wastes,—as at the stage-stations along the road, or in the mining towns,—it immediately assumed the familiarity of our eastern Pewee, at once taking possession of any outbuilding or any abandoned dwelling. Its notes differ widely from those of the S. fuscus and S. nigricans, the common one consisting of a wailing peer, varied by a tremulous twitter, and more resembling certain tones of the Wood Pewees (Contopus virens and richardsoni), with others which occasionally call to mind the Myiarchus cinerascens.
This species has been observed as far to the east as Racine, Wisconsin, where it was taken by Dr. P. R. Hoy. The specimen was sent to Mr. Cassin, and its identity fully established. Dr. Palmer found it breeding near Fort Wingate, in Arizona, June 11, 1869, and Mr. Ridgway obtained its nests and eggs at Pyramid Lake, Nevada, May 23, 1868. One of these nests (No. 13,588) he describes as a nearly globular mass, more flattened on top, 3.50 inches in depth by 4.00 in diameter, and composed chiefly of spiders’ webs, with which is mixed very fine vegetable fibres, of various descriptions. This composition forms the bulk of the nest, and makes a closely matted and tenacious, but very soft structure; the neat but rather shallow cavity is lined solely with the grayish-white down of wild ducks. The nest was placed on a shelf inside a small cave on the shore of the island, at about ten or twelve feet from the water.
Their eggs are rounded at one end and pointed at the other, measure .82 of an inch in length by .65 in breadth. They are of a uniform chalky white, and, so far as I am aware, entirely unspotted.
Contopus, Cabanis, Journ. für Ornith. III, Nov. 1855, 479. (Type, Muscicapa virens, L.)
Contopus borealis.
942 ♂