THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 35 
I noted but one nest of the wood pewee, and that, 
too, like so many other nests, failed of issue. It was 
saddled upon a small dry limb of a plane-tree that 
stood by the roadside, about forty feet from the ground. 
Every day for nearly a week, as I passed by I saw the 
sitting bird upon the nest. Then one morning she 
twas not in her place, and on examination the nest 
proved to be empty — robbed, I had no doubt, by the 
red squirrels, as they were very abundant in its vicin- 
ity, and appeared to make a clean sweep of every nest. 
The wood pewee builds an exquisite nest, shaped and 
finished as if cast ina mould. It is modeled without 
and within with equal neatness and art, like the nest 
of the humming-bird and the little gray gnat-catcher. 
The material is much more refractory than that used 
by either of these birds, being, in the present case, 
dry, fine cedar twigs; but these were bound into a 
shape as rounded and compact as could be moulded 
out of the most plastic material. Indeed, the nest of 
this bird looks precisely like a large, lichen-covered, 
cup-shaped excrescence of the limb upon which it is 
placed. And the bird, while sitting, seems entirely at 
her ease. Most birds seem to make very hard work 
of incubation. It is a kind of martyrdom which ap- 
pears to tax all their powers of endurance. They 
have such a fixed, rigid, predetermined look, pressed 
down into the nest and as motionless as if made of 
cast-iron. But the wood pewee is an exception. She 
is largely visible above the rim of the nest. Her atti- 
tude is easy and graceful; she moves her head this 
way and that, and seems to take note of whatever goes 
on about her; and if her neighbor were to drop in for 
a little social chat, she could doubtless do her part. 
In faet, she makes light and easy work of what, to 
