THE SMALL FLYCATCHERS. 185 



No bird is more sociable than the least flycatcher, or chebec. 

 He likes to live with people, in orchard and shade trees, and 

 prefers to nest in an apple tree. He is fond of society, and 

 wiH, by preference^ take a perch that commands your windows 

 or your piazza, where he will sit and snap his bill and chebec 

 at you with intelligent sprightliness. How much the little 

 fellow wants to talk ! What sensible remarks he appears capa- 

 ble of making! His big head seems full of ideas; he wants 

 to tell you something, and men are so stupid ! There is good 

 reason for his sharp, snappy remarks, interrupted now and 

 then by little turns of flycatching. 



The wood pewee is quite a different bird. He does not 

 court society, but sits high up in a tree, an elm or maple when 

 in village streets, and from his retirement drawls out his slow 

 pee-e-wee or pee-er-ree. It is hot weather music, languid and 

 listless, as fitted to the warmth of June and July as is the 

 cicada's z-ing to the heat of August. We see little of the wood 

 pewee, though he is common enough. Every year he nests in 

 my garden ; but, as he builds some thirty or forty feet above 

 the ground, in the limbs of the bushiest maples, I never find 

 his nest till autumn strips off the leaves. I am accustomed to 

 his retired, listless, melancholy ways, credit him with being 

 here when I hear his pe&-er-ree, and do not much court his 

 companionship when he seems not to care for mine. 



Phoebe is larger and browner than the others, seeks more 

 open locations, and builds about outhouses, and farms, and 

 beneath bridges, especially in deserted houses and the horse- 

 sheds attached to country churches. Phoebe is a brisk, alert 

 bird, always calling out phodte! phoebe! pewit phoebe, and click- 

 ing her bill as she snaps her tail back and forth. Sometimes, 

 on one of her sallies, she will catch several insects before 

 returning to her perch. Few birds are so domestic as phoebe. 



