CHOCORUA. 213 



pewees were feeding their young in a nest at 

 the top of a pilaster under the eaves of the 

 house. The piazza rail was their perch all 

 through the day. They have occupied the nest 

 three years. The nest used in 1888 is in an angle 

 of the roof near by. The pewee has a trick 

 which it is hard to explain. It jerks its tail up- 

 ward sharply about once in two seconds. The 

 motion is petulant in character, but suggestive 

 of eternal vigilance. Both birds caught insects 

 for their young, and the feeding process seemed 

 perpetual. Over the dairy window is a wooden 

 gutter to catch the rain from the roof. This 

 being a dry spring, a foolish robin built in the 

 gutter, near its lower end. The nest was soaked 

 by the storm on the 29th and 30th, and partly 

 dissolved by the trickling water, but the robin 

 stuck to her eggs. The noisiest birds anywhere 

 near the cottage were a pair of great-crested fly- 

 catchers. They screamed or whistled all day. 

 Their voices are harsh, their tempers and man- 

 ners bad, but their nesting habits are very inter- 

 esting. They build every year in the hollow of 

 an apple tree, where a large limb broke off long 

 ago and gave the elements a chance to make a 

 deep, dark cavity. The last nest I examined 

 consisted of cow's hair, reddish fur, feathers, a 

 squirrel's tail, grasses, dry leaves, shreds of birch 

 bark, and many small pieces of snake-skin. One 



