LITTLE FLYCATCHER.
? Platyrhynchus pusillus, Swainson, Phil. Mag. I, May, 1827, 366. Tyrannula pusilla, Sw. F. B. Am. II, 1831, 144, pl.—Rich. App. Back’s Voyage, 1834-36, 144.—Gambel, Pr. A. N. Sc. III, 1847, 156. Muscicapa pusilla, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 288, pl. ccccxxxiv.—Ib. Birds Am. I, 1840, 236, pl. lxvi. Tyrannus pusilla, Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840. Empidonax pusillus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 194. Cooper & Suckley, 176.—Sclater, Catal. 1862, 229. Empidonax trailli, Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 327 (Colorado River).
Empidonax pusillus.
Sp. Char. Second, third, and fourth quills longest; first shorter than the sixth. Bill rather broad; yellow beneath. Tail even. Tarsi rather long. Above dirty olive-brown, paler and more tinged with brown towards the tail. Throat and breast white, tinged with grayish-olive on the sides, shading across the breast; belly and under tail-coverts very pale sulphur-yellow. Wings with two dirty narrow brownish-white bands slightly tinged with olive; the secondaries and tertials narrowly and inconspicuously margined with the same. First primary faintly edged with whitish; the outer web of first tail-feather paler than the inner, but not white. Under wing-coverts reddish ochraceous-yellow. A whitish ring round the eye. Length, 5.50; wing. 2.80; tail, 2.75. Young. Wing-bands ochraceous instead of grayish.
Hab. High Central Plains to the Pacific. Fur countries. Southward into Mexico. Fort Whipple, Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 61); Vera Cruz, temp. reg. resident (Sum. Mem. Bost. Soc. I, 557).
This race represents the var. trailli in the region west of the Rocky Mountains. The present bird is paler colored than trailli, the olivaceous above much more grayish anteriorly, and more brownish posteriorly, the olive being thus less greenish and less uniform in tint; the brownish shade across the breast is lighter and more ashy, and the yellow tinge posteriorly beneath more faint; the wing-bands lighter and more grayish. In color, pusillus thus approximates somewhat to E. minimus, which, however, is a very distinct species, and more closely related to E. hammondi; minimus may be distinguished by much smaller size (the bill especially), the wing-bands grayish-white instead of olive-gray, and the tail emarginated instead of appreciably rounded; minimus lays a white egg like E. obscurus, while pusillus and trailli lay distinctly spotted ones, and build a very different nest.
Habits. Professor Baird, in his Birds of North America, assigns to this species an area of distribution extending from the Great Plains to the Pacific, southward into Mexico, and north to the fur country. Dr. Hoy cites it as of Wisconsin in his List of the birds of that State, but without positive data for this claim; it has, however, since been actually taken, a summer
resident breeding in Jefferson County, in that State. This is its most eastern known occurrence. In the Smithsonian Museum are skins from Fort Steilacoom, Fort Tejon, and Mexico. This species is probably identical with the Little Tyrant Flycatcher, described by Swainson in the Fauna Boreali as both from Mexico and from the Arctic regions. Dr. Richardson was not able to supply anything in regard to its habits. They were first seen by him at the Carlton House on the 19th of May. For a few days they were found flitting about among low bushes on the banks of the river, after which they retired to moist shady woods lying farther north.