FLYCATCHERS. 289 



and rarely, if ever, before the last week of March. They 

 arrive singly, and the males seem quite dispirited until the 

 appearance of their mates, when they at once assume their 

 usual cheerfulness. The same pair return every year to 

 the same spot, during their life-time, and, should one of 

 them die, the other often finds a new mate, with whom, in 

 the following spring, he returns to his old quarters. The 

 Pewees are summer residents in all the States of New 

 England, but in the northern sections are not common, 

 though elsewhere abundant and generally well known. They 

 frequent farms, and cultivated or open lands. They are 

 nowhere shy, but occasionally the rapidity with which they 

 check their course on entering the building which contains 

 their nest, seeing there some person, shows that they pos- 

 sess a share of the timidity natural to most birds. Though 

 they frequently feed upon berries, such as those of the 

 poisonous " ivy," they are chiefly insectivorous. In hunting 

 for their usual prey, they choose a perch in some open 

 spot, and rarely at any great height from the ground. 

 They then flirt their tails, or from time to time utter their 

 note ; but, on seeing an insect, they fly, and commonly seize 

 it 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 major- 

 ity 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- 



