Wood Peicee. 225 



WOOD PKVVKK. 



With most persons knowledge of many of the birds is 

 only negative. They seldom give extended notice to the 

 movements and manners of the birds, but they readily feel 

 that something is lacking when certain birds are absent 

 from any neighborhood or locality where such birds are 

 ordinarily seen and heard. Some birds of plain attire 

 are so perfectly in accord with their surroundings that 

 their presence is oftener overlooked than observed. When 

 they are absent, however, from their accustomed haunts, or 

 from places where we should naturally expect them to be 

 abundant, we intuitively feel the incompleteness of our 

 surroundings, even when we are not able to describe the 

 missing features. Such is the common knowledge con- 

 cerning the modest little wood pewee. No feature of its 

 plain attire attracts the eye; no unseemly or demonstra- 

 tive action in its behavior brings it conspicuously before 

 our notice. 



"It is a woe, sad-colored tiling, 

 As siiy and secret as a maid, ' 



and it is so closely assimilated with its somber environ- 

 merits in the "twilight noon" of the forest, that except 

 as its sweet, plaintive call reaches our ear, the little fly- 

 catcher is likely to be unobserved. To the earnest and 

 sympathetic lover of nature, however, the wood pewee 

 appeals for its share of friendship, and discovers traits 

 which awaken lively interest. 



All the flycatchers have a decided family resemblance, 

 and hence the wood pewee has not been clearly distin- 

 guished from its congeners at all times, it being especially 

 confounded with the phoebe by superficial observers. The 

 green-crested flycatcher and Traill's flycatcher, however, 

 bear stronger resemblances to the wood pewee than does 

 the phcebe. Yet there is slight ground for confusion of 

 the different species, for each of the four has well-defined 

 haunts and characteristic manners, which serve clearly to 

 identify each and separate it from its relatives. While 

 the phoebe prefers the streamsides and the vicinity of old 

 bridges, buildings and wells, the wood pewee chooses the 

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