Home Nature-Study Course. 405 



most branch and there utters its short note "chebec" over and 

 over with many vivacious flirts of the tail. It looks like a small 

 specimen of a wood peewee, ao it usually has quite well marked 

 wing-bars. Its note often changes from the "chebec" to "check." 

 It is a most industrious singer and it is as noisy as it is beneficial in 

 the orchards, where it destroys hundreds of insects every day. 

 This little bird winters in the tropics. It builds its nest in the forks 

 of branches and makes it daintily of finely shredded bark and hair 

 and the down of plants and rootlets. 



89. Have you ever seen the chebec? If so, when and where? 



90. How would you tell the chebec from the wood peewee? 



91. How distinguish it from the phoebe bird? 



92. Describe the chebec according to outline given for field study of birds. 



7'he Wood Peewee. — While this bird loves the depths of the woods, 

 yet it is learning the advantages of civilization and the telephone 

 wire as a point of vantage. Every year of late we have seen the 

 peewees on the Cornell campus resting on the telephone wires "be- 

 tween bites." The wood peewee is a constant singer, and its plain- 

 tive, sweet trissyllabic " pee-ah-wee" is a certain means of identifi- 

 cation. It does not flirt its tail quite so constantly nor raise its 

 crest quite so excitedly as does the phoebe. Its ivory white wmg- 

 bars distinguish it readily from the phoebe. It is a most useful bird 

 to our forests, feeding upon insects which injure both timber and 

 leaves. 



The wood peewee's nest is an exquisite structure; it is beautifully 

 curved inside and made soft with fibrous materials. On the outside 

 it is usually decorated with lichens, and is so smoothly connected 

 with the limb on which it rests, that it seems almost a part of it. 



93. Do you know the wood peewee? Where do you find it? 



94. Have you heard its song? Describe. 



95. Did you ever see its nest? What advantage would it be to a nest to be 

 covered with lichens? 



96. Describe the wood peewee according to outline given for field study. 



A certificate will be granted to those who satisfactorily complete ten 

 lessons or the year's work. 



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