LEAST FLYCATCHER. 87 



suggests all the happiness of domestic love and 

 peace. At one moment its minor 



rrr 



come to me i 



with the liquidity of a " U " of sound <C,Lf 

 is fraught with all the pathos and yearning of a 

 desolated human heart. At another, its tender, 

 motherly ~- ^ .^ 



dear-ie dear-ie dear 



with which it lulls its little ones, is as soothing 

 to the perplexed and burdened soul as the soft 

 breathing of the wind through the pine needles, 

 or the caressing ripple of the sunset-gilded waves 

 of a mountain lake. 



XXIV. 



LEAST FLYCATCHER. 



IF you have been in the country, or even in 

 one of our smaller towns during the spring and 

 summer, you may have noticed the reiteration of 

 an abrupt call of two notes che-becJc' che-beck' 

 coming from the apple-trees and undergrowth. If 

 you have traced it you have discovered a small 

 gray bird, in coat and habit a miniature of the 

 phoebe and wood pewee, jerking not only his tail 

 but his whole body with his emphatic call. 



This small bird seems a piquant satire on the 



