158 WOOD PEWEE. 



Pewee. As so often happens among birds, their voices 



are in keeping with their temperaments. The soft, 



Wood Pewee dreamy pee-a-wee or pee-a-wee peer of 



Contopus virens. the Pewee is as well suited to its char- 



Piate xxxin. acter as the harsh, chattering cries of 



victory are to the Kingbird's. 



The Pewee is the last of our more common Fly- 

 catchers to come from the South, arriving about May 10, 

 and, like the Chebec, remaining until October. It is less 

 social than either the Chebec or the Phoebe. Forests 

 are its chosen haunts, but occasionally it is found on well- 

 shaded lawns and roadsides. 



The Pewee' s nest rivals the Hummingbird's in beauty. 

 It is a coarser structure, composed of fine grasses, rootlets, 

 and moss, but externally is thickly covered with lichens. 

 Usually it is saddled on a limb from twenty to forty feet 

 above the ground. The eggs, three or four in number, 

 are white, with a wreath of dark brown spots around the 

 larger end. 



LARKS. (FAMILY ALAUDID^E.) 



This family contains the true Larks, birds with long 

 hind toe nails, and a generally brown or sandy colored 

 plumage, the Skylark being a typical species. There are 

 some one hundred species of Larks, but of these only the 

 Horned Lark and its geographical varieties are found 

 in this country. 



The variation in color shown by the Horned Lark 

 throughout its range is remarkable. From the Mexican 



Horned Lark tableland northward to Labrador and 



otocoris alpestris. Alaska no less than eleven different 



Plate xxxiv. geographical races are known, each one 



reflecting the influence of the conditions under which it 



lives, and all intergrading one with another. Only two of 



