IO4 BIRD-LAND ECHOES. 



step ornithology is well enough in its way, and the 

 more we have of it the better, but it is also well to 

 keep out of doors a good deal, and probably nothing 

 in an unexciting way is more pleasant than to meet 

 this unpretending flycatcher down some woodland 

 path. The chances are that you will find it perched 

 well up on some tall tree, but where there is plenty 

 of open space about it. The bird will probably 

 make no demonstration if you pass quietly by, but, 

 even when you are nearest, sighting some tempting 

 fly, will sail into the air, seal the insect's fate with a 

 cruel click of its beak, and before it has regained its 

 perch sometimes drawls out a prolonged pe-a-wee, 

 certainly suggestive of satisfaction and, as I have 

 always thought, of laziness, a complaint, as it were, 

 that so much flycatching must needs be done before 

 the desired "square meal" can be secured. Poor 

 pewee ! It is always hungry. I have seen it at sun- 

 rise darting at flies in the chilly, dismal, fog-laden air, 

 and until noon, though the woods were as another 

 Inferno, still at work, instead of resting when other 

 birds were taking a nap ; not even during the quiet 

 of mid-afternoon, when the sun seemed to have 

 paused in his career ; no, nor yet at sundown, when 

 even the last robin had chirped to the world "good- 

 night ;" but at last, when, in the fading light, its 

 skill was no longer equal to the task, it, too, bade 

 me farewell, its mournful, tired-out pe-a-wee being 

 the last bird-sound of the day, lost, except to sharpest 

 ears, in the hum of a million insects and the din of 

 countless meadow-frogs and toads. 



