62 IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



power to the eye, the ear, the nose ! And are not 

 the rarest and most exquisite songsters wood-birds ? 

 Everywhere in these solitudes I am greeted with 

 the pensive, almost pathetic note of the wood-pewee. 

 The pewees are the true fly-catchers, and are easily 

 identified. They are very characteristic birds, have 

 strong family traits, and pugnacious dispositions. 

 They are the least attractive or elegant birds of our 

 fields or forest. Sharp-shouldered, big-headed, short- 

 legged, of no particular color, of little elegance in 

 flight or movement, with a disagreeable flirt of the 

 tail, always quarreling with their neighbors and with 

 one another, no birds are so little calculated to excite 

 pleasurable emotions in the beholder, or to become 

 objects of human interest and affection. The king- 

 bird is the best dressed member of the family, but he 

 is a braggart : and, though always snubbing his 

 neighbors, is an arrant coward, and shows the white 

 feather at the slightest display of pluck in his antag- 

 onist I have seen him turn tail to a swallow, and 

 have known the little pewee in question to whip him 

 beautifully. From the great crested to the little 

 green fly-catcher, their ways and general habits are 

 the same. Slow in flying from point to point, they 

 yet have a wonderful quickness, and snap up the 

 fleetest insects with little apparent effort. There is a 

 constant play of quick, nervous movements under- 

 neath their outer show of calmness and stolidity. 

 They do not scour the limbs and trees like the war- 

 blers, but, perched upon the middle branches, wait. 



