Note 220 — THE LABRADOR JOURNAL (continued 2)

This is the bird which Audubon afterward identified with Tyrannula richardsonii of Swainson, Fn., Bor.-Am., ii., 1831, p. 146, pl. 46, lower fig., and published under the name of the Short-legged Pewee or Pewit Fly-catcher, Muscicapa phœbe, in Orn. Biogr., v. p. 299, pl. 434; B. Am., 8vo ed., i. p. 219, pl. 61. The species is now well known as the Western Wood Pewee, Contopus richardsoni; but it has never since Audubon's time been authenticated as a bird of Labrador. Audubon was of course perfectly familiar with the common Wood Pewee, Contopus virens, and with the Pewit Flycatcher, Sayornis phœbe. We can hardly imagine him mistaken regarding the identity of either of these familiar birds; yet there is something about this Labrador record of supposed C. richardsonii which has never been satisfactorily explained.—E. C.