1 8 CANADA FLYCATCHER.
The Muscícapa Bonapartii was met with in Louisiana, where, during
a residence of many years, I never saw the present species. Nay, the
Canada Flycatcher, although a migratory, may be said to be truly a northern
bird, never having been observed south of Pennsylvania, east of the
range of the Alleghany mountains, or below Pittsburg, on their broad
western slope.
I first became acquainted with the habits of the Canada Flycatcher in
the Great Pine Forest, while in company with that excellent woodsman
JEDIAII IRISH, of whom I have previously spoken ; and I have since ascertained
that it gives a decided preference to mountainous places, thickly
covered with almost impenetrable undergrowths of tangled shrubbery.
I found it breeding in the Pine Forest, and have followed it through
Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the country of
Labrador, in every portion of which, suited to its retired habits, it brings
forth its broods in peaceful security.
I t no doubt comes from the southern parts of America, or from the
West Indies, but the mode of its migration is still unknown to me. In
Pennsylvania, about the middle of May, a few are seen in the maritime
districts, where they seem merely to be resting after the fatigues of a
long and tedious journey, before they retreat to their favourite haunts
in the mountainous tracts. There they are heard while concealed among
the opening blossoms, giving vent to their mirth in song, perhaps thanking
the Author of their being for their safe return to their cherished abode.
Their notes are not unmusical, although simple and not attractive. Whereever
a streamlet of rushing water, deeply shaded by the great mountain
laurel {Rhododendron maximum) was met with, there was the Canada
Flycatcher to be found. You might see it skipping among the branches:,
peeping beneath each leaf, examining every chink of the bark, moving
along with rapidity and elegance, singing, making love to its mate, and
caressing her with all the fervour of a true sylvan lover.
The nest of this bird which I found, was filled to the brim with four
young ones ready to take wing; and as it was on the 11th of August, I
concluded that the parents had reared another brood that season. When
I put my hand on them, they all left the nest and scrambled off, emitting
a plaintive tsche, which immediately brought the old ones. Notwithstanding
all the anxious cares of the latter in assisting them to hide, I procured all
of them ; but after examining each minutely I set them at liberty. They
were of a dull greyish tint above, of a delicate citron colour beneath, and
CANADA FLYCATCHER. L9
without any spots on the breast or sides. The nest was placed in the
fork of a small branch of laurel, not above four feet from the ground,
and resembled that of the Black-capped Warbler. The outer parts were
formed of several sorts of mosses, supporting a delicate bed of slender
grasses, carefully disposed in a circular form, and lined with hair. In
another nest found near Eastport, in the State of Maine, on the 22d of
May, five eggs had been laid, and the female was sitting on them. They
were of a transparent whiteness, with a few dots of a bright red colour
towards the large end. This nest also was placed in the fork of a small
bush, and immediately over a rivulet.
The flight of the Canada Flycatcher is rather swifter than that of
sylvia? generally i s ; and as it passes low amid bushes, the bird cannot be
followed by the eye to any considerable distance. Now and then it gives
chase on the wing, when the clicking of its bill is distinctly heard. By
the 1 st of October not one remained in the Great Pine Forest, nor did I
see any in Labrador after the 1st of August. A few were seen in Newfoundland
in the course of that month, and as I returned through Nova
Scotia, these birds, like my own party, were all moving southward.
MUSCÍCAPA CANADENSIS, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 327.
SYLVIA PARDALINA, Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 79.
SETOPHAGA BONAPARTII, Swains, and Richards, Fauna Boreali-Americana, Part ii.
p. 225.
CANADA FLYCATCHER, MUSCÍCAPA CANADENSIS, Wils. Anier. Ornith. vol. iii. p. 1 0 0 .
PL 26, fig. 2. Male.
Adult Male. Plate CHI. Fig. 1.
Bill of moderate length, straight, broad and depressed at the base,
acute; upper mandible slightly notched, and a little inflected at the tip,
lower mandible straight. Nostrils basal, lateral, roundish, partly covered
by the frontal feathers. Head and neck moderate. Eyes moderate. Body
slender. Legs of ordinary size; tarsus a little longer than the middle
toe; inner toe a little united at the base; claws compressed, acute, arched.
Plumage ordinary, blended. Wings of ordinary length, the second
primary longest. Tail rather long, slightly emarginate, straight. Basirostral
feathers bristly, and directed outwards.
Bill pale brown above, flesh-coloured below. Iris deep brown. Feet
and claws flesh-coloured and semitransparent. The upper parts are of
a light brownish-grey, the quills brown edged externally with paler, as
B 2