THE WOOD PEWEE. 321 
wreathed in their tenderest greens; the fresh blossoms, opening to the wooing 
breeze, are exhaling their choicest odors; the air hums with teeming insect life. 
But the Wood Pewee takes only a languid interest in all these matters. His 
memory is haunted by an unforgotten sorrow, some tragedy of the ancestral 
youth, and he sits alone, apart, saying ever and anon as his heart is freshly 
stirred, pé-a-wee, pé-a-wee. 
As the season advances, however, the drawling minor notes contrast less 
strangely with the surroundings. Bobolink’s note tinkles distantly from the 
meadows or is hushed under the weight of increasing family cares. Oriole 
still flutes, but only spasmodically, and soon we know he too will be silent. 
When the days reach their full length and the trees can hold not another leaf, 
then the heart of the olive stranger grows warm. He feels that he has come 
to his own, and from some ashen limb on the border of a woodsy aisle, his oft- 
repeated notes blend perfectly with the languorous air. When other birds are 
silent through the heat of the day, this soothful singer interprets rather than 
breaks the delicious stillness of the sunlit shades by his gentle inquiry, 
pe-a-wee? pe-a-wee? And then from time to time, lest his quaint interroga- 
tion should seem yet too obtrusive, he answers himself with a quainter note 
of perfect comprehension and content, a/i-péa-wee. 
Altho fond of the deeper woods the Wood Pewee is by no means confined 
tothem. He is even a little partial to the haunts of men if they include orchard 
and ample shade trees. His whistled notes present an irresistible temptation 
to imitation, but when he hears his name called by unfamiliar lips he exhibits 
only mild surprise without resentment. 
The nest of the Wood Pewee is one of the most sightly and romantic struc- 
tures which an ingenious Nature has evolved. Who would not, after the Hang- 
bird’s nest perhaps, choose a home which looked as if it grew upon the very 
lamb which supported it? A rather shallow cup—not a saucer—made of split 
grass, weed-fibers, delicate strips of grapevine bark, and abundant moss, is 
settled into the crotch of a lichen-covered horizontal limb, or perhaps it is 
saddled upon the middle of the limb, even tho it be not over an inch in thick- 
ness. In place of cement or vulgar mud, the builders use spiders’ silk, the 
toughest of substances for its size, and delightfully sticky. When the walls are 
laid, a fairy network of this substance is spread over the outside; and lichens, 
carefully selected to correspond with those already appearing on the limb, are 
plentifully used to decorate and conceal the surface. The resulting creation 
appears like a moss-covered knot where knots are common, and that is all. 
But of what use is all this cunning art of decorative concealment, if the 
proud architects have to go and give the secret away after all? One has only 
to determine the general vicinity of a Pewee’s nest, and then wait quietly at 
some little distance until the bird flies straight to it. Even when standing 
beneath the exact spot, the bird, in utter guilelessness or confidence, will settle 
