THE WOOD PEWEE. 137 



describes it as follows : "It was built in the horizontal 

 branch of a tall red cedar, forty or fifty feet from the 

 ground. It was formed much in the manner of the King- 

 bird's, externally made of interlaced dead twigs of the 

 cedar ; internally, of the wire stolons of the common Lichen 

 or Usnea. It contained three young, and had had probably 

 four eggs. The eggs had been hatched about the 20th of 

 June, so that the pair had arrived in this vicinity about the 

 close of May." He also describes the bird's note as 

 follows : " The female had a whistling, oft-repeated, whin- 

 ing call of 'pit 'pit, then varied to 'pu 'pip, and 'pip 'pu, also 

 at times 'pip 'pip 'pu, 'pip 'pip 'pip, 'pii 'pu 'pip, or 'tu 'tu, 

 'tu, and 'tu, 'tu. The male, besides this note, had, at long 

 intervals, a call of seh' phebee or 'h' pheb^d, almost exactly 

 in the tone of the circular tin whistle or bird-call." 



By the second week in September, none of these birds 

 are to be seen ; and, probably before that time, they have 

 all departed on their migrations. 



CONTOPUS VIRENS. Cabanis. 



The Wood Pewee. 



Muscicapa virens, Linnaeus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 327. Nutt. Man., I. (1832) 

 285. Aud. Orn. Biog., II. (1834) 93; V. (1839) 425. 

 Muscicapa rapax, Wilson. Am. Orn., II. (1810) 81. 

 Tyrannus virens, Nuttall. Man., I. (2d ed., 1840) 316. 



DESCRIPTION. 



The second quill longest, the third a little shorter, the first shorter than the 

 fourth, the latter nearly forty one-hundredths longer than the fifth ; the primaries 

 more than an inch longer than the secondaries ; the upper parts, sides of the head, 

 neck, and breast, dark olivaceous-brown, the latter rather paler, the head darker; a 

 narrow white ring round the eye ; the lower parts pale-yellowish, deepest on the 

 abdomen; across the breast tinged with ash; this pale ash sometimes occupies 

 the whole of the breast, and even occasionally extends up to the chin; it is also 

 sometimes glossed with olivaceous; the wings and tail dark-brown, generally deeper 

 than in S. fuscus; two narrow bands across the wing, the outer edge of first 

 primary and of the secondaries and tertials dull-white ; the edges of the tail feathers 

 like the back, the outer one scarcely lighter; upper mandible black, the lower yel- 

 low, but brown at the tip. 



Length, six and fifteen one-hundredths inches; wing, three and fifty one-hun- 

 dredths; tail, three and five one-hundredths. 



Hob. Eastern North America to the borders of the high central plains, south to 

 New Granada. 



