The Birds and Poets 63 



Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, 

 The high notes of the lone wood-thrush 

 Fall on the forest's holy hush: 



But thou all day complainest here, 

 'Pe-wee ! Pe-wee ! peer !' ' 



Next to the humming bird, this little flycatcher 

 builds the most exquisite little nest of all the feath- 

 ered kingdom. It is always flattened out on a single 

 horizontal limb, is only about an inch in height, 

 lined with the finest root fibre, and covered with 

 crustaceous lichens held together with cobwebs 

 and caterpillar's silk with such skill and art that it 

 is almost impossible to distinguish it from a moss- 

 covered knot, natureVown handiwork. 



The soft, pensive, plaintive note of this little 

 bird, in the midday heat of a summer day in the 

 woods, when all other birds are silent, has a peace- 

 ful, quieting influence, like the cooling shades of 

 the forest where alone the song may be heard. 



When feeding it sits on a dead or projecting 

 branch of a tree from which it darts at intervals in 

 graceful undulations among the shadows of the 

 wood, catching its insect prey, and returning to its 

 perch, where it repeats its feeble song, usually 

 accompanied by a quivering of the wings, and a 

 downward tilt of the tail. 



The Acadian flycatcher is also quite common in 

 this latitude, more common than the Traill's or the 

 least flycatcher. Of course the most distinguish- 

 ing trait of the flycatchers, and the first aid to 



