THE TRAGEDIES OF TUB NESTS. 35 



1 noted but one nest of the wood pewee, and that, 

 too, like so many other nests, failed of issue. It was 

 saddled upon a small dry limb of a plane-tree that 

 ^tood by the roadside, about forty feet from the ground. 

 tCvery day for nearly a week, as I passed by I saw the 

 sitting bird upon the nest. Then one morning she 

 was not in her place, and on examination the nest 

 proved to be empty — robbed, I had no doubt, by the 

 red squirrels, as they were very abundant in its vicin- 

 ity, and appeared to make a clean sweep of every nest. 

 The wood pewee builds an exquisite nest, shaped and 

 finished as if cast in a mould. It is modeled without 

 and within with equal neatness and art, like the nest 

 of the humming-bird and the little gray gnat-catcher. 

 The material is much more refractory than that used 

 by either of these birds, being, in the present case, 

 dry, fine cedar twigs ; but these were bound into a 

 shape as rounded and compact as could be moulded 

 out of the most plastic material. Indeed, the nest of 

 this bird looks precisely like a large, lichen-covered, 

 cup-shaped excrescence of the limb upon which it is 

 placed. And the bird, while bitting, seems entirely at 

 her ease. Most birds seem to make very hard work 

 of incubation. It is a kind of martyrdom which ap- 

 pears to tax all their powers of endurance. They 

 have such a fixed, rigid, predetermined look, pressed 

 down into the nest and as motionless as if made of 

 cast-iron. But the wood pewee is an exception. She 

 is largely visible above the rim of the nest. Her atti- 

 tude is easy and graceful ; she moves her head this 

 way and that, and seems to take note of whatever goes 

 on about her ; and if her neighbor were to drop in for 

 a little social chat, she could doubtless do her part. 

 In fact, she makes light and easy work of what, to 



