Muscicapa Cooperi, Nuttall. Tyrannus borealis, Swains.
PLATE CLXXIV. Male and Female.

It is difficult, for me at least, to understand how we should now have in the United States so many birds which, not more than twenty years ago, were nowhere to be found in those countries. Of these new-comers the Olive-sided Flycatcher is one, and one, too, whose size and song render it very conspicuous among its kindred. That birds should thus suddenly make their appearance, and at once diffuse themselves over almost the whole of the country, is indeed a very curious fact; and were similar changes to take place in the other tribes of animals, and in other countries, the arrangements of systematic writers would have to undergo corresponding revolutions, a circumstance which would tend to add to the confusion arising from the continual shiftings, combinations, disseverings, abrasions of names, and alterations of method, which the interpreters of nature are pleased to dignify with the name of science.

The discovery of this species is due to my amiable and learned friend Nuttall, part of whose account of its habits I have pleasure in laying before you. When, a few years ago, I rambled, as I do now, in quest of knowledge, scarcely an individual could be found in the United States conversant with birds. At the present day there are several, with whom I am personally acquainted, who have fully proved their zeal and activity, by their discoveries and descriptions. It is enough for me to mention here the well known names of Bonaparte, Nuttall, Cooper, Bachman, Pickering, Oaks, and Townsend, whose labours demonstrate the rapid advance of science in our country, and whose works will endure for ages.

On the 8th of August 1832, while walking out from Boston towards the country seat of the Honourable Thomas H. Perkins, along with my friend Nuttall, we were suddenly saluted with the note of this bird. As I had never seen it, I leaped over the fence beside us, and cautiously approached the tree on which a male was perched and singing. Desiring my friend to go in search of a gun, I watched the motions of the devoted bird. He returned with a large musket, a cow's horn filled with powder, and a handful of shot nearly as large as peas; but just as I commenced charging this curious piece, I discovered that it was flintless! We were nearly a mile distant from Mr Perkins' house, but as we were resolved to have the bird, we proceeded to it with all dispatch, procured a gun, and returning to the tree, found the Flycatcher, examined its flight and manners for a while, and at length shot it. As the representative of a species, I made a drawing of this individual, which you will find copied in the plate indicated above. But now let us attend to Nuttall's account.

"This undescribed species, which appertains to the group of Pewees, was obtained in the woods of Sweet Auburn, in this vicinity, by Mr John Bethune of Cambridge, on the 7th of June 1830. This and the second specimen acquired soon afterwards, were females on the point of incubation. A third individual of the same sex was killed on the 21st of June 1831. They were all of them fat, and had their stomach filled with torn fragments of wild bees, wasps, and other similar insects. I have watched the motions of two other living individuals, who appeared tyrannical and quarrelsome, even with each other. The attack was always accompanied with a whining querulous twitter. Their dispute was apparently, like that of savages, about the rights of their respective hunting-grounds. One of the birds, the female, whom I usually saw alone, was uncommonly sedentary. The territory she seemed determined to claim was circumscribed by the tops of a cluster of Virginian junipers or red cedars, and an adjoining elm and decayed cherry-tree. From this sovereign station, in the solitude of a barren and sandy piece of forest, adjoining Sweet Auburn, she kept a sharp look-out for passing insects, and pursued them with great vigour and success as soon as they appeared, sometimes chasing them to the ground, and generally resuming her perch with an additional mouthful, which she swallowed at leisure. On ascending to her station, she occasionally quivered her wings and tail, erected her blowzy cap, and kept up a whistling, oft-repeated, whining call, of pu, pu, then varied to pu, pip, and pip, pu, also at times pip, pip, pu, pip, pip, pip, pu, pu, pip, or tu, tu, tu, and sometimes tu, tu. This shrill, pensive, and quick whistle, sometimes dropped almost to a whisper, or merely pu. The tone is, in fact, much like that of the phu, phu, phu, of the Fish Hawk. The male, however, besides this note, at long intervals had a call of eh phÈbee, or h'phebÉa, almost exactly in the tone of the circular tin whistle or bird call, being loud, shrill, and guttural at the commencement. The nest of this pair I at length discovered in the horizontal branch of a tall red cedar, forty or fifty feet from the ground. It was formed much in the manner of the King-bird's, externally made of interlaced dead twigs of the cedar, internally of wiry stolons of the common cinquefoil, dry grass, and some fragments of branching lichen or usnea. It contained three young, and had probably four eggs. The eggs had been hatched about the 20th of June, so that the pair had arrived in this vicinity about the close of May. The young remained in the nest no less than twenty-three days, and were fed from the first on beetles and perfect insects, which appeared to have been wholly digested, without any regurgitation. Towards the close of this protracted period, the young could fly with all the celerity of their parents, and they probably went to and from the nest before abandoning it. The male was at this time extremely watchful, and frequently followed me from his usual residence, after my paying him a visit, nearly half a mile. These birds, which I watched on several successive days, were no way timid, and allowed me for some time previous to visiting their nest, to investigate them and the premises they had chosen, without showing any sign of alarm or particular observation."

I received from my friend the following additional account, in a letter dated September 12. 1833. "Something serious has happened to our pair of the new Flycatchers (Muscicapa Cooperi), which have for three years at least, bred and passed the summer in the grounds of Mount Auburn. This summer they were no longer seen. It is true they were not very well used last year; for, in the first place, I took two of the four eggs they had laid, when they deserted the nest, and soon, within little more than a stone's-throw, they renewed their labours, and made a second, which was also visited; but from this I believe they raised a small brood. The nest, as before, was placed on a horizontal branch of a red cedar, and made chiefly of the smallest interlaced twigs collected from the dead limbs of the same tree, in all cases so thin, like that of the Tanager, as to let the light readily through its interstices. An egg you have, which, as to size, so completely resembles that of the Wood Pewee, as to make one and the same description serve for both; that is to say, a yellowish cream-white, with spots of reddish-brown, of a light and dark shade. All the nests, three in number, were within 150 yards of each other respectively. I saw another pair once in a small piece of dry pine wood in Mount Auburn one year; but they did not stay long. A third pair I saw the summer before the last, on the edge of the marsh towards West Cambridge Pond; these appeared resident. The next pair I had the rare good fortune to see in your company, by which means they have been masterly figured. It is beyond a doubt M. borealis of Richardson, but I believe Mr Cooper and myself discovered it previously, at least before the appearance of Dr Richardson's Northern Zoology."

In the course of my journey farther eastward, I found this species here and there in Massachusetts and the State of Maine, as far as Mars Hill, and subsequently on the Magdeleine Islands, and the coast of Labrador; but I have not yet been able to discover its line of migration, or the time of its arrival in the Southern States.

Adult Male. Plate CLXXIV. Fig. 1.

Bill of moderate length, stout, straight, broad at the base, and tapering, compressed only close to the tip; both mandibles with the dorsal line very slightly convex, the sides rounded, the edges nearly straight, sharp, inclinate; a slight notch close to the small deflected tip. Nostrils basal, lateral, roundish, partly covered by the bristly feathers. Head rather large, neck short, body rather slender. Feet short; tarsus compressed, covered anteriorly with a few broad scutella; toes of moderate size, the hind one not proportionally larger, the inner a little shorter than the outer; claws rather long, arched, much compressed, very acute.

Plumage soft and blended, with little gloss. Strong bristles at the base of the upper mandible. Wings rather long, second quill longest, first longer than third, second and third slightly cut out on the outer web; the primaries tapering and rounded. Tail of ordinary length, emarginate, of twelve rounded feathers.

Bill blackish-brown above, the lower mandible brownish-yellow, with the tip dusky. Iris dark hazel. Feet dusky, claws brownish-black. The whole upper parts, with the cheeks and sides of the neck, dusky brown; quills and tail blackish-brown, the secondaries margined with brownish-white. A stripe of greyish-white runs down the fore-neck from the bill, and joins the white of the breast and abdomen, the latter being tinged with yellow; the sides dusky grey.

Length 7½ inches, extent of wings 12¾; bill along the ridge 8/12, along the edge 1 3/12; tarsus 7/12.

Adult Female. Plate CLXXIV. Fig. 2.

The Female resembles the Male, but has the lower parts of a duller hue.

This species is nearly allied to the King Bird and the Grey Tyrant, from both of which, however, it is readily distinguished.

The Balsam or Silver Fir.

This beautiful fir is abundant in the State of Maine, where I made a drawing of the twig before you. It grows on elevated rocky ground, often near streams or rivers. Its general form is conical, the lower branches coming off horizontally near the ground, and the succeeding ones becoming gradually more oblique, until the uppermost are nearly erect. The leaves and cones become so resinous in autumn, that, in climbing one of these trees, a person is besmeared with the excreted juice, which is then white, transparent, and almost fluid. The leaves are solitary, flat, emarginate, or entire, bright green above, and glaucous or silvery beneath; the cones cylindrical, erect, with short obovate, serrulate, mucronate scales. It is abundant in the British provinces, the Northern States, and in the higher parts of the Alleghany Mountains. The height does not exceed fifty feet. The bark is smooth, the wood light and resinous. The resin is collected and sold under the names of Balm of Gilead and Canada Balsam.