120 WAKE-ROBIN 



neutral in the contest, showed his culpable partial- 

 ity by flying off with his paramour, and for the rest 

 of the evening left the tree to his pugnacious con- 

 sort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and 

 tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, 

 these disputes with the jealous females; and by the 

 aid of the neighboring bachelors, who are never 

 wanting amoi:^ these and otlier birds, peace was at 

 length completely restored by the restitution of the 

 quiet and happy condition of monogamy." 



Let me not forget to mention the nest under the 

 mountain ledge, the nest of the common pewee, — 

 a modest mossy structure, with four pearl-white 

 eggs, — looking out upon some wild scene and over- 

 hung by beetling crags. After all has been said 

 about the elaborate, high-hung structures, few nests 

 perhaps awaken more pleasant emotions in the mind 

 of the beholder than this of the pewee, — the gray, 

 silent rocks, with caverns and dens where the fox 

 and the wolf lurk, and just out of their reach, in a 

 little niche, as if it grew there, the mossy tenement ! 



Nearly every high projecting rock in my range 

 has one of these nests. Following a trout stream 

 up a wild mountain gorge, not long since, I counted 

 five in the distance of a mile, all within easy reach, 

 but safe from the minks and the skunks, and well 

 housed from the storms. In my native town I 

 know a pine and oak clad hill, round- topped, with 

 a bold, precipitous front extending half way around 

 it. Near the top, and along this front or side, 

 there crops out a ledge of rocks unusually high and 



