320 THE WOOD PEWEE. 



expresses its distrust of the bird-man, craning his neck from below, by occa- 

 sional alarm notes of singular resonance and penetrating quality, tew-tew, 

 tew-tew, tew, tew, tew'. Beside this he has a loud call, swee-chew, which is 

 one of the characteristic notes of the dense evergreen forests in which the bird 

 spends its summer. "Three Cheers," he seems to say — as a gold-miner in the 

 Cascade Mountains of Washington once put it. And, truly, for one who has 

 been delving all day in the bowels of the silent earth, the greeting which this 

 bird shouts down from the topmost twig of some giant fir is most welcome and 

 dispiriting. 



No. 140. 



WOOD PEWEE. 



A. O. U. No. 461. Contopus virens (Linn.), 



Description. — Adult: Upper parts dusky, with a brownish, olivaceous, 

 olive-green, or even grayish cast, — brighter in any case on sides of neck and on 

 back; wings and tail darker; middle and greater coverts tipped with brownish 

 gray, forming two rather noticeable bars ; under parts sordid white or yellowish, 

 tinged more or less on sides and sometimes across breast with olive-brown or 

 gray ; bill black above, light yellow below, sometimes dark-tipped ; feet black. 

 Varies considerably in the matter of olivaceous and yellow coloring, being brighter 

 colored after each moult, viz., in spring and fall. Immature birds have some 

 rusty tinging of the feather tips, especially on the wing-coverts. Length 6.00- 

 6.60 ( 152.4-167.6) ; av. nf five Columbus specimens: wing 3.37 (85.6) ; tail 2.55 

 (64.8) ; bill from nostril .39 (9.9). 



Recognition Marks. — Small Sparrow size ; obscure coloration ; broad bill, 

 yellow below; gray wing-bars; pe-a-we note. 



Nest, a shallow cup of compacted moss, grass, rootlets, etc., lined indiffer- 

 ently well with grasses, but handsomely decorated externally with lichens ; sad- 

 dled midway or in fork of horizontal limb, at middle heights. Eggs, usually 3, 

 sometimes 4, creamy-white, marked by largish spots of distinct and obscure rufous- 

 brown or umber, in open wreath about larger end. Av. size. .71 x .55 1 18. x 14. ). 



General Range. — Eastern North America, west to the Plains, and from 

 southern Canada southward, migrating through eastern Mexico and Honduras to 

 Colombia and Ecuador. Breeds from Florida to Newfoundland. 



Range in Ohio. — Abundant summer resident. 



WHEN the tide of spring migrations is at its height, and the early morn- 

 ing woods are bursting with melody, a pensive stranger, clad in soberest olive, 

 takes his place on some well shaded limb and remarks, pe-a-wee, in a plaintive 

 voice and with a curious rising inflection at the end. Unlike his cousin, the Phoe- 

 be, who came too earlv in March. and who felt aggrieved at the lingering frosts. 

 the Wood Pewee has nothing that he may rightly complain of. The trees are 



