THE WOOD PEWEE. 137 
describes it as follows: “It was built in the horizontal 
branch of a tall red cedar, forty or fifty feet from the 
ground. It was formed much in the manner of the King- 
bird’s, externally made of interlaced dead twigs of the 
cedar ; internally, of the wire stolons of the common Lzchen 
or Usnea. It contained three young, and had had probably 
four eggs. The eggs had been hatched about the 20th of 
June, so that the pair had arrived in this vicinity about the 
close of May.” He also describes the bird’s note as 
follows: “The female had a whistling, oft-repeated, whin- 
ing call of ’pi ’pii, then varied to ’pi ’pip, and ’pip ’pit, also 
at times "pip "pip "pi, "pip "pip ’pip, pit pi pip, or tis ’tit 
ti, and ’tii ’ti. The male, besides this note, had, at long 
intervals, a call of seh’ phébeé or ’h’ phebéd, almost exactly 
in the tone of the circular tin whistle or bird-call.” 
By the second week in September, none of these birds 
are to be seen; and, probably before that time, they have 
all departed on their migrations. 
CONTOPUS VIRENS. — Cabanis. 
The Wood Pewee. 
Muscicapa virens, Linneus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 327. Nutt. Man., I. (1882) 
285. Aud. Orn. Biog., II. (1834) 93; V. (1839) 425. 
Muscicapa rapax, Wilson. Am. Orn., II. (1810) 81. 
Tyrannus virens, Nuttall. Man., I. (2d ed., 1840) 316. 
DESCRIPTION. 
The second quill longest, the third a little shorter, the first shorter than the 
fourth, the latter nearly forty one-hundredths longer than the fifth; the primaries 
more than an inch longer than the secondaries; the upper parts, sides of the head, 
neck, and breast, dark olivaceous-brown, the latter rather paler, the head darker; a 
narrow white ring round the eye; the lower parts pale-yellowish, deepest on the 
abdomen; across the breast tinged with ash; this pale ash sometimes occupies 
the whole of the breast, and even occasionally extends up to the chin; it is also 
sometimes glossed with olivaceous; the wings and tail dark-brown, generally deeper 
than in S. fuscus; two narrow bands across the wing, the outer edge of first 
primary and of the secondaries and tertials dull-white; the edges of the tail feathers 
like the back, the outer one scarcely lighter; upper mandible black, the lower yel- 
low, but brown at the tip. 
Length, six and fifteen one-hundredths intelioss wing, three and fifty one-hun- 
dredths; tail, three and five one-hundredths. 
Hab. — Eastern North America to the borders of the high central plains, south to 
New Granada. 
