WOOD PEWEE. 67 



song it certainly is, and not simply a call — bears more genuine 

 pathos in ite three sweet notes than any other bird's song I 

 know. Heard in the ([uiet of the groves — the pewee's favorite 

 haunts — or heard in the orchard during the twilight hour, these 

 notes fall on the ear like a wail of despair, telling of a sorrow 

 that cannot be healed. Yet the bird seems happy, is an active, 

 bustling little body, and quite as unconscious of the sad strain in its 

 monody as a babe is of the niirth in its laughter, or the whid of its 

 sigh. This song has been represented in the books by pe-ice-e and 

 pe-oy-tve and other words, but it is too subtle a thing to be crys- 

 talized in a word, and its strain has a wild plaintiveness that neither 

 human voice nor instrument can counterfeit. 



You are more likely to find the nest of the pewee in the grove be- 

 yond the village, or ne.ir the farmer's house, than in the orchard, yet 

 an apple tree is often selected, and I have watched a pair saddle their 

 trim home on the branch of a maple not fifty yards from my window. 

 The nest itself is peculiarly constructed, for while the walls are 

 thick and firmly laid, the bottom is thin. The materials used are 

 twigs and roots, and shreds of bark, and the walls are covered on 

 the outside with lichens, like a hummingbird's. The inside is 

 furnished with a cushion of dry moss, and upon this the female lays 

 her three or four pretty eggs. The ground color of these is creamy 

 white, and near the larger end is a wreath of brown and lilac spots. 



The plumage of the wood pewee is olive brown above, some- 

 what darker on the head, wings and tail, and the under parts 

 are whitish with a yellow tinge. The sides are washed with a pale 

 olive tint and this extends across the breast ; the wings bear two 

 bars of yellowish white. The extreme length of the bird is about 

 six inches. 



Our bird feeds almost entirely upon winged insects which it 

 captures in true flycatcher fashion — darting upon its prey while on 

 the wing and closing the bill upon the mite with a sharp, audible 

 snap. 



