Wilson’s Flycatching Warbler
 

Wilson’s Flycatching Warbler [now Wilson’s Warbler]
Myiodioctes wilsonii, Bonaparte [now Cardellina pusilla]
Octavo edition, plate 75

“This species passes rapidly through the United States on its way to the Northern Districts, where it breeds and spends the summer. Wilson saw only a few specimens, which he met with in the lower parts of Delaware and New Jersey, and supposed it to be an inhabitant of the Southern States, where, however, it is never found in the summer months. It is not rare in the State of Maine, and becomes more abundant the farther north we proceed. I found it in Labrador and all the intermediate districts . . . It has all the habits of a true Flycatcher, feeding on small insects, which it catches entirely on the wing, snapping its bill with a smart clicking sound. It frequents the borders of the lakes, and such streams as are fringed with low bushes, from which it is seen every moment sallying forth, pursuing its insect prey for many yards at a time, and again throwing itself into its favourite thickets . . . The nest is placed on the extremity of a small horizontal branch, amongst the thick foliage of dwarf firs, not more than from three to five feet from the ground, and in the centre of the thickets of these trees so common in Labrador. The materials of which it is composed are bits of dry moss and delicate pine twigs, agglutinated together and to the branches or leaves around it, and beneath which it is suspended, with a lining of extremely fine and transparent fibres . . . The parents shew much uneasiness at the approach of any intruder, skipping about and around among the twigs and in the air, snapping their bill, and uttering a plaintive note.”

John James Audubon, Birds of America (New York: J.J. Audubon; Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier, 1840-1844), vol. 2, p. 21.

View bird in National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds.