CONTOPUS VIRENS : WOOD PEWEE. 29 



mon birds, and inhabits all of the country. As its name 

 indicates, it is partial to forests, and on the whole is of a 

 retiring and unfamiliar disposition, though far from shy, 

 and often surrendering the pleasures of solitude for those 

 of society in the orchard or garden. Wherever it may 

 fix its home, whether in the seclusion of sylvan retreats 

 or in the vicinity of man's abode, its presence is soon 

 made known by its oft-repeated melancholy notes, seem- 

 ing to speak some settled sorrow that time can never 

 heal. The sighing of the pines is not more express- 

 ive of mournful fancies than the sobbing of the little 

 sombre-colored bird, flitting apparently inconsolable 

 through their shades. But we need not be moved to 

 pity by the anatomical configuration of a bird's wind- 

 pipe. Let us stick to science, and leave the sham of 

 things to poets. The Pewee is a very practical and 

 doubtless happy bird, brimful of active energy, con- 

 stantly exhibited in the forays it makes after winged in- 

 sects that venture too near its perch, and in the nervous 

 way the wings flutter before and after these spirited ex- 

 cursions, while the lengthened feathers of the crown are 

 alternately erected and depressed with the changing 

 mood of the irritable creature. 



Quite the opposite of its relative the Phoebe-bird, the 

 Wood Pewee is a loiterer by the way in spring ; though 

 it seems in no particular haste to depart with the waning 

 season. It is in fact one of the latest arrivals among our 

 summer guests — very fashionable in this respect. It 

 scarcely enters Connecticut before the middle of May, 

 and is not generally dispersed over the country before 

 June. The return movement may begin early in Sep- 

 tember, in more northerly sections, but is not completed 

 till the end of that month. Nesting is correspondingly 



