Birds and Nature, Vol. 10 No. 3 [October 1901]Various
History
Birds and Nature, Vol. 10 No. 3 [October 1901]
Various
Birds -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals
Its generic name is very suggestive. It is Empidonax, from two Greek
words, meaning mosquito and a prince—Mosquito Prince!
Major Bendire says: “In the Adirondack mountains, where I have met with
it, it was observed only in primitive mixed and rather open woods, where
the ground was thickly strewn with decaying, moss-covered logs and
boles, and almost constantly shaded from the rays of the sun. The most
gloomy looking places, fairly reeking with moisture, where nearly every
inch of ground is covered with a luxuriant carpet of spagnum moss, into
which one sinks several inches at every step, regions swarming with
mosquitoes and black flies, are the localities that seem to constitute
their favorite summer haunts.” Surely the name Empidonax is most
appropriate.
[Illustration: YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER.
(Empidonax flaviventris).
About Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.]
The nest is usually constructed on upturned roots near the ground, or on
the ground deeply imbedded in the long mosses. A nest belonging to the
National Museum is thus described: “The primary foundation of the nest
was a layer of brown rootlets; upon this rested the bulk of the
structure, consisting of moss matted together with fine broken weed
stalks and other fragmentary material. The inner nest could be removed
entire from the outer wall, and was composed of a loosely woven but,
from its thickness, somewhat dense fabric of fine materials, consisting
mainly of the bleached stems of some slender sedge and the black and
shining rootlets of ferns, closely resembling horsehair. Between the two
sections of the structure and appearing only when they were separated,
was a scant layer of the glossy orange pedicels of a moss not a fragment
of which was elsewhere visible. The walls of the internal nest were
about one-half an inch in thickness and had doubtless been accomplished
with a view of protection from dampness.” The nests are sometimes made
of dried grasses interwoven with various mosses and lined with moss and
fine black wire-like roots. Again, the birds seem to have an eye for
color and will face the outside of the nest with fresh and bright green
moss. In every way the nest seems a large house for so small a bird.
To study this Flycatcher “one must seek the northern evergreen forests,
where, far from human habitations, 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 the way. Where all
is green and dark and cool, in some glen overarched by crowding spruces
and firs, birches and maples, there it is we find him and in the beds of
damp moss he skillfully conceals his nest.”
THE REIGN OF THE WHIPPOORWILLS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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