JFIotoers anti Voices. 277 



For weeks there has been a notable absence 

 of bird-voices. The English sparrows are for 

 the most part on a vacation to the grain-fields. 

 The songsters are almost silent save the con- 

 stant wood-pewee, who, however, only utters the 

 first two notes of his plaintive cry. His is a 

 haunting, melodious strain I should sadly miss 

 from the copse and garden. The ornithologists 

 describe his voice very variously. Coues speaks 

 of the " sobbing of the little somber-colored 

 bird " ; Wilson places him " amid the gloom of 

 the woods, calling out in a feeble, plaintive voice 

 ' peto-way, peto-way, peto-way ' " ; Langille terms 

 his notes " a slow, tender, and somewhat melan- 

 choly whistle, ' pe-wee '" ; Flagg refers to his 

 " feeble and plaintive note " ; Trowbridge, in his 

 poem, interprets his song, " Pe-wee ! pe-wee ! 

 peer ! " Burroughs alone rightly describes it as 

 "a sweet, pathetic cry." It is, in addition, a cry 

 of considerable volume and penetration, its sweet- 

 ness masking its real force, always plaintive, and, 

 when the full strain is delivered, wonderfully 

 effective at the close. I -can not discern any- 

 thing resembling " pe-wee " in either call or re- 

 sponse unless it be in late summer. It sounds 

 distinctly ivhe-il whe ; ivhee u. 



The common pe-wee or phcebe-bird pos- 

 sesses no such subtle charm. He never tires of 



