Mr. Paine has since informed me that Traill’s Flycatcher reaches Central Vermont from the 20th to the 25th of May, and is one of the last birds to arrive, coming in company with Contopus virens and C. borealis. They all leave before the close of September. Mr. Paine has met with a great many nests of this species, but has only found one containing more than three eggs. It has a very simple song, consisting of but two notes. It has also a sort of twitter as it plays with its mate. They are usually found in thickets, for the most part near water, but not always, and are never seen in tall woods. They are occasionally seen chasing one another in the open fields.
Mr. William Brewster informs me that he found Traill’s Flycatcher moderately common and breeding at the foot of Mount Washington, in the Glen,
in August, 1869, and in the township of Newry, Me., in June, 1871. Their favorite haunts were the dense alder thickets along the runs and small streams, over these dark retreats, perched on some tall dead branch, full in the rays of the noonday sun. The male sang vigorously, occasionally darting out after some insect, and returning to the same perch. His song consisted of a single dissyllabic refrain, ke´wing, uttered in a harsh peevish tone at an interval of about thirty seconds, varied occasionally to ke´wink, or ki-winch. At each utterance his head is thrown upwards with a sudden jerk. They were retiring, but not shy, were easily approached, and were apparently not so restless as most Flycatchers.
Near Washington, Dr. Coues found Traill’s Flycatcher a rare spring and fall visitant, a few possibly remaining to breed. They came about the last of April, and passed south the last of September. Professor Baird frequently met with them about Carlisle, Pa.
In Southern Illinois, Mr. Ridgway has found this species a rather common summer resident, chiefly met with in the open woods. It was found nesting in Northwestern Massachusetts by Mr. A. Hopkins, in Illinois by Mr. Tolman, in New Brunswick by Mr. Barnstow, and at Fort Resolution by Messrs. Kennicott, Ross, and Lockhart.
I have myself found this species on the banks of the Androscoggin and Peabody Rivers in Gorham, and met with several of their nests. They were all in similar situations, and it was quite impossible to obtain a glimpse of the bird after she had left her nest. The nests were all made like those of the Indigo-Bird, externally of dry grasses and fine strips of bark, and lined with finer stems of grasses. The eggs were five in number, and incubation commenced about the first of June. I have discovered their nests at the same time among the foot-hills at the base of Mount Washington, its wooded sides being, at the time, covered with snow to the depth of several feet.
Among the memoranda of Mr. Kennicott I find one dated Fort Resolution, July 9, mentioning the procuring of the parent nest and egg of this species. The nest was three feet from the ground, in a small spruce among thick low bushes. The female was shot on the nest, which contained two young and two eggs. Eggs of this species from Gorham, N. H., and Coventry and Randolph, Vt., do not essentially vary in size or shape. They measure .63 of an inch in length, by .56 in breadth. Their ground-color is white, with a distinctly roseate tinge. They are oval in shape, a little less obtuse at one end, and marked almost entirely about the larger end with large and well-defined spots and blotches of purplish-brown.
LEAST FLYCATCHER.
Tyrannula minima, Wm. M. and S. F. Baird, Pr. A. N. Sc. I, July, 1843, 284.—Ib. Sillim. Am. Jour. Sc. July, 1844.—Aud. Birds Am. VII, 1844, 343, pl. ccccxci. Empidonax minimus, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 195.—Sclater, Catal. 1862, 229.—Samuels, 141.