220 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIEDS 



crumbling relics of how many, if you should look care- 

 fully enough ! It takes us many years to find out that 

 Nature repeats herself annually. But how perfectly 

 regular and calculable all her phenomena must appear 

 to a mind that has observed her for a thousand years ! 

 • 



OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER ; PE-PE 



JuTie 6, 1857. As I sit on Lee's Cliff, I see a pe-pe^ 

 on the topmost dead branch of a hickory eight or ten 

 rods off. Regularly, at short intervals, it utters its 

 monotonous note like till-till-till, or pe-pe-pe. Looking 

 round for its prey and occasionally changing its perch, 

 it every now and then darts off (phoebe-like), even five 

 or six rods, toward the earth to catch an insect, and 

 then returns to its favorite perch. If I lose it for a 

 moment, I soon see it settling on the dead twigs again 

 and hear its till^ till, till. It appears through the glass 

 mouse-colored above and head (which is perhaps 

 darker), white throat, and narrow white beneath, with 

 no white on tail. 



WOOD PEWEE 



May 22, 1854. I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and 

 then occasionally pee-yu, the first syllable in a differ- 

 ent and higher key, emphasized, — all very sweet and 

 naive and innocent. 



May 23, 1854. The wood pewee sings now in the 

 woods behind the spring in the heat of the day (2 p. m.), 



^ [This is one of Nuttall's names for the olive-sided flycatcher. He 

 indicated the pronunciation thus : pe-pe. Thoreau had met with the 

 bird in the spring migrations of the two preceding years.] 



