WOOD PEWEE. 85 
voracious appetites of their infants were satisfied. 
DeKay says of the kingbird’s diet: “ He feeds 
on berries and seeds, beetles, canker-worms, and 
insects of every description. By this, and by his 
inveterate hostility to rapacious birds, he more 
than compensates for the few domestic bees with 
which he varies his repast.” To this DeKay adds 
the interesting statement: “ Like the hawks and 
owls, he ejects from his mouth, in the shape of 
large pellets, all the indigestible parts of insects 
and berries.” 
XXII. 
WOOD PEWEE. 
IN size, coloring, and habit you will hardly dis- 
tinguish the wood pewee from the pheebe, al- 
though the former is somewhat smaller. These 
two birds stand apart from all the others we have 
had. The chimney swift and barn swallow also 
live on insects, but measure the difference in their 
methods of hunting. The swift zigzags through 
the air, picking up his dinner as he goes; the 
swallow skims the rivers, and circles over the 
meadows and through the sky, without so much 
as an ungraceful turn of the wing to suggest that 
he is dining. But the phcebe and the wood pe- 
wee lie in wait for their victims. They cunningly 
assume indifference until the unwary gauzy-wing 
floats within range, then spring on it, snap it up, 
and fall back to wait for another unfortunate. 
