268 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



trees. She will then sometimes disappear into the midst of the body 

 of a tree and leave him hovering in bewilderment close by." 



Speaking .of the period of courtship, Dr. Thomas S. Roberts 

 (1932) says: "The male Wood Pewee has, besides the usual pee-a-wee^ 

 a rapid chattering utterance, delivered as he pursues the female 

 among and over the tree-tops; also, at such times, a few full, sweet 

 notes, almost as though he were about to warble a song and suggest- 

 ing a phrase from that of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. This was 

 heard on one occasion (June 20) just at sundown as a pair of Pewees 

 that had a nest near by were indulging in most ardent expressions 

 of devotion, accompanied by aerial evolutions so rapid as to make 

 it difficult to follow them with the eye." 



Nesting. — The nest of the wood pewee is a dainty little structure, 

 harmonizing so closely with the surroundings that our eye may easily 

 pass along the limb to which the nest is bound without detecting it. 

 The nest seems tiny for the size of the bird, sits close to the branch — 

 the bottom thin, the walls low and thick — and the outside is sheathed 

 with bits of lichen. 



The site of the nest is generally on a small limb, often dead and 

 patched with lichens, commonly at a height of about 20 feet, in or 

 near a level fork well out from the trunk of the tree. 



Bendire (1895) states that the bird "shows a decided preference 

 for open, mixed woods, free from underbrush, and frequents the 

 edge of such as border on fields, clearings, etc., either in dry or moist 

 situations," and that "an average and typical nest of the Wood Pewee 

 measures 2% inches in outer diameter by 1% inches in depth; the 

 inner cup is about 1% inches wide by I14 inches deep." 



Arthur C. Bent writes in his notes : "Most of the nests that I have 

 seen have been on horizontal, lichen-covered limbs of old apple trees 

 in orchards, ar on dead limbs of pitch pines in the PljTiiouth woods." 

 The Plymouth woods is a dry, tangled wilderness, extending over many 

 square miles in southeastern Massachusetts, overgrown with pitch 

 pines and scrub oak and interspersed with small ponds. 



Dickey (MS.), whose investigations were largely conducted in Penn- 

 sylvania, gives a long list of trees in which he has found wood pewees' 

 nests. It includes oaks (white, red, and black), sugar maple, black 

 walnut, yellow locust, elm, apple, and pear, generally in specimens 

 of large growth. He has found a nest in a flowering dogwood tree 

 only 8 feet above ground. He says that willows are used rarely, but 

 he speaks of one nest in a partly dead willow tree five feet out from 

 the main stem. Another nest was "in a stalwart sycamore, six feet 

 through at the butt, in a horizontal fork 45 feet aloft and 18 feet out 

 from the main bole." 



