Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/55

 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 sylviæ generally is; 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 1st 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.

Adult Male. Plate CIII. 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