FAMILY Tyranniae. 
presence is soon made known by its oft-repeated melan- 
choly notes seeming to speak some settled sorrow that 
time can never heal. The sighing of the pines is not 
more expressive of. mournful fancies than the sobbing of 
the little sombre-colored bird, flitting apparently incon- 
solable through their shades.” That is carrying things 
to extremes, I should say, and smacks not a little of 
maudlin sentiment. However, every one to his own 
mind, and if one feels that way about a bird singing in 
largo time, the interpretation is presumably correct, for 
at most the music is a song without words. A bright 
little poem from the pen of J. T. Trowbridge gives us 
an entirely different impression of the bird’s character, 
so there is no doubt but that pure sentiment is at the 
bottom of the whole matter. 
The Wood Pewee is a common resident of the orchard, 
and often of the elm or maple that shades the village 
street; in spring and early summer he spends most of the 
time in the woods, but when the young have flown he 
returns to ‘‘town” or at least to some highway that 
leads to it. Like all others of his tribe he is famous for 
his dexterity in catching insects on the wing. 
Chebec. Least The little Chebec has none of the music 
I eaener, of the Wood Pewee. His is a toneless call 
Empidonax rgd. ee 
BE ip of two short syllables whicn is the origin of 
L.5.40inches his common name. In appearance, too, 
May ist he is very ordinary. Upper parts olive 
brown; wings and tail sepia brown, the wing coverts 
tipped with buffish drab forming two distinct wing- 
bars on each wing; under parts dull white, grayish 
on the breast, and generally yellowish below; the 
lower mandible brown. Male and female are marked 
alike. This is the smallest of the Flycatchers. Nest, of 
rootlets, plant-fibre, and plant-down interwoven with 
long hairs, usually lodged in a Y branch six to fifteen 
feet above ground. Egg pure white. The bird is com- 
mon through the Eastern States, but breeds only from 
Pennsylvania northward to Quebec. 
There is no bird more easily identified than the Least 
Flycatcher. His call note is unique; it is a perfectly 
42 
