248 FLYCATCHERS. 
     
    
   
   
    
     To thoroughly appreciate how well the Pewee’s disposition is 
     
     suited to his haunts and notes, we have only to imagine him taking 
     
     the Phoebe’s place and singing the Phoebe’s song. He was not in- 
     
     tended to adorn a bridge or barn, but in the darkened woods, high up 
     
     in the trees, he finds a congenial home. 
     
    

    
     His pensive, gentle ways are voiced by his sad, sweet call: 
     
    

    
     .0. ,9. The notes are as musical and restful, as much a part 
     
     4. .t of Nature’s hymn, as the soft humming of a brook. 
     
     E—t—t: All day long the Pewee sings; even when the heat 
     
    

    
     ________ of summer silences more vigorous birds and the 
     
     Pee-a ' wee midday sun sends light-shafts to the ferns, the 
     
     clear, sympathetic notes of the retiring songster come from the green 
     
     canopy overhead, in perfect harmony with the peace and stillness of 
     
    
   
   
    
     the hour. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     483. Empldonax flavlventris Baird. YELLOW-BELLIED FLY— 
     
     CATCHER. Ad.——Upper parts rather dark olive—green; wings and tail fus- 
     
     cous; greater and lesser wing—coverts tipped with white or yellowish white ; 
     
     under parts sulphur—yellow, the belly pure, the throat, breast, and sides more 
     
     or less washed with olive-green; upper mandible black, lower mandible 
     
     whitish or flesh—color; second to fourth primaries of equal length, the first 
     
     shorter than the fifth. Im.—Yellow of the under parts brighter, wing-bars 
     
     more yellow, and sometimes tinged with pale ochraceous-buff. L., 5-63; W. 
     
     265: T., 216; B. from N., '33. 
     
    

    
     Bemarlcs."l‘his is the most yellow of our small Flycatchers. In any plum— 
     
     age the entire under parts, including the throat, are sulphur—yellow or dusky 
     
     yellowish. In the other eastern species of this genus the threat is white. 
     
    

    
     Range—Eastern North America; breeds from Berkshire County, Mass, 
     
     to Labrador; winters in Central America. 
     
    

    
     Washington, rather common T. V., May 1 to May 31; Aug. 1 to Oct. 1. 
     
     Sing Sing, common T. V., May 17 to June 4; Aug. 8 to Sept. 20. Cambridge, 
     
     T. V., sometimes rather common, May 24 to June 5; Aug. 25 to Sept. 10. 
     
    

    
     Nest, of moss, lined with grasses, on the ground, beneath the roots of a 
     
     tree or imbedded in moss. Eggs,-four, creamy white, with numerous pale cin— 
     
     namon- brown markings, chiefly about the larger end, ‘68 x '54. 
     
    
   
   
    
     To see this little Flycatcher at his best, one must seek the northern 
     
     evergreen forest, where, far from human habitation, its mournful 
     
     notes blend with the murmur of some icy brook tumbling over mossy 
     
     stones or gushing beneath the still mossier decayed logs that threaten 
     
     to bar its way. Where all is green and dark and cool, in some glen 
     
     overarched by crowding spruces and firs, birehes and maples, there it is 
     
     we find him, and in the beds of damp moss he skillfully conceals his 
     
     nest. He sits erect or] some low twig. and, like other Flycatchers, the 
     
     snap of his bill tells of a sally after his winged prey. He glides 
     
     quietly away when approached, and. his occasional note of complaint