280 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



instantaneously, though sometimes obliged to give chase, which 

 they do most adroitly. They often resort to the edge of ponds 

 or streams, where gnats or mosquitoes abound. In feeding 

 from a swarm of very small insects, they frequently hover with 

 the body almost erect, and sustained by a rapid beating of the 

 wings. Their flight is quite characteristic, but cannot be well 

 defined ; it is rarely protracted, unless directed toward their 

 nest. They never alight on the ground, unless to pick up some 

 material for building, or to perch upon a heap of earth. In 

 autumn, they are not confined to their usual haunts, but wander 

 quite freely about the country, though rarely to be found in 

 woods. I have never seen them near Boston later than the 

 sixteenth of October, and a majority pass to the southward 

 much earlier. 



(d). The Pewees possess a greater variety of notes than a 

 superficial observer would suppose. They have a loud chip 

 (more or less characteristic), being, I believe, the only non- 

 oscine (or unmusical) birds who possess this note. They have 

 also a wliit, a single rather melancholy whistle, but seldom 

 heard, and various twitters, of which some are querulous and 

 others not unlike those of the King-bird. Besides these sounds, 

 of which the latter are heard chiefly in spring, they utter quite 

 constantly during the breeding-season, though much less often 

 in summer, and rarely in autumn, their familiar and cheerful 

 note, pee-wee, which is subject to ny>re or less modification. 

 Occasionally, in April, a Pewee darts into the air, and, hover- 

 ing or fluttering in a circle, repeats this note so rapidly and 

 excitedly as to produce eccentric music, which might almost 

 without impropriety be called a song. There is, I believe, 

 nothing which I can say to endear these birds to the naturalist, 

 more than they are now endeared to all who know them. 



IV. CONTOPUS 



(A) BOREALIS. Olive-sided Flycatcher. 

 (A rather rare summer-resident.) 



(a). About ?i inches long. Tail considerably forked; 

 crown-feathers erectile and dark-centred. Above, of an inde- 



