282 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



(a). Six inches long or more. Tail forked ; crown-feathers 

 erectile. Bill black above only. Wings always with two nar- 

 row whitish bars. Otherwise the coloration is essentially that 

 of the Common Pewee (III). (See p. 273.) 



(6). The nest is artistic, and in its character quite unique, 

 though in some respects not unlike that of the Hummingbird. 

 It is composed chiefly of fine grasses, or weed-stalks, which are 

 mixed with the silk of spiders or caterpillars. It is rather 

 shallow, and, being thickly covered outside with lichens, seems 

 a part of the moss-grown limb to which it is "saddled." It is 

 usually placed on a horizontal branch of the oak, or some like 

 tree, in a grove or rather lightly timbered wood, from ten to 

 fort}" feet above the ground. Near Boston, four or five eggs 

 are laid about the middle of June. They average -70 X '55 

 of an inch, and are buff or creamy, with a few large markings, 

 at the greater end, of lilac and umber or reddish-brown. 



(c) . The Wood Pewee is one of the four common flycatchers 

 in southern New England, and even in the northern parts is 

 not a rare summer-resident. He is one of the latest migrants 

 in spring, and does not reach Massachusetts until the third or 

 often the fourth week of May. He announces his arrival by 

 his plaintive notes, which lie utters in his favorite haunts, the 

 woods and groves. These places he rarely leaves, for he is 

 rather reserved and unsocial, having little to do with man or 

 other kinds of birds, though very affectionate to his mate and 

 young. There is sometimes an air of seeming melancholy 

 about him which is quite touching, but undoubtedly he either 

 takes a pleasure in sadness, or else he is not sad. He is not 

 very often seen, but he may easily be observed from his habit 

 of returning to one spot. I have known one to choose the 

 dead limb of a pine, to which he resorted every evening for 

 about an hour, and sometimes in the course of the day. There 

 I often saw him with his mate, but since the building of their 

 nest the place has been deserted. The limit of his wanderings 

 from his nest seems to be about one-eighth pf a mile, and, to a 

 certain extent, he may at certain hours be found at nearly the 

 same place from day to day. 



