264 BIRDS OF ONTARIO. 



CONTOPUS YIRENS (LINN.). 

 189. Wood Pewee. (461) 



Olivaceous-brown, rather darker on the head ; below, with the sides washed 

 with a paler shade of the same nearly or quite across the breast ; the throat and 

 belly, whitish, more or less tinged with dull yellowish ; under tail coverts, the 

 same, usually streaked with dusky ; tail and wings, blackish, the former 

 unmarked, the inner quills edged and the coverts tipped with whitish ; feet and 

 upper mandible, black ; under mandible, usually yellow, sometimes dusky. 

 Spring specimens are purer olivaceous. Early fall birds are brighter yellow 

 below ; in summer, before the now worn feathers are renewed, quite brown and 

 dingy-whitish. Very young birds have the wing-bars and pale edging of quills 

 tinged with rusty, the feathers of the upper parts skirted, and the lower 

 plumage tinged with the same ; but in any plumage the species may be known 

 from all the birds of the following genus by these dimensions. Length, 6-6J ; 

 wing, 3^-3J ; tail, 2^-3 ; tarsus, about ^, not longer than the bill. 



HAB. Eastern North America to the Plains, and from Southern Canada 

 southward. 



Nest, composed of bark fibre, rootlets and grass, finished with lichens ; on 

 the outside it is compact and firm round the edge, but flat in form, and rather 

 loose in the bottom. It is sometimes saddled on a bough, more frequently 

 placed on the fork of a twig ten or twelve feet or more from the ground. 



Eggs, three or four, creamy-white, blotched and variegated at the larger- 

 end with reddish-brown and lilac-gray. 



This species resembles the Phoebe in appearance, but is smaller, 

 and has an erect, hawk-like attitude, when seen perched on a dead 

 twig on the outer limb of a tree. It is a late comer, being seldom 

 seen before the middle of May, after which its prolonged, melancholy 

 notes may be heard alike in the woods and orchards till the end of 

 August, when the birds move south. To human ears, the notes of the 

 male appear to be the outpourings of settled sorrow, but to his mate 

 the impressions conveyed may be very different. 



In the breeding season, it is generally distributed throughout 

 Ontario, and a few are found in Manitoba. 



Its visit here is comparatively short, for it does not appear till the 

 middle of May, and leaves again early in September. Its food 

 consists chiefly of insects, caught while on the wing. 



