“J 
BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 24 
SAYORNIS PH@BE (Laruam). (456.) 
PHBE. 
This plain but very much esteemed bird reaches us about the 
first to the tenth of April. Dr. Hvoslef reports its arrival at 
Lanesboro on the 24th of March, and at different points in 
southern Minnesota it is recognized about the same date. It is 
as widely a distributed species as we have, and remains as long 
as its food supply holds out, which is generally about the 15th 
of October. Few birds are more thoroughly welcomed not- 
withstanding its lack of attractive feathers. Its disposition to 
cling to the approximate vicinities of our habitations, together 
with its plaintive notes, ‘‘phebe-phebee,” in asubdued tone, some- 
what drawn out at times, and again shortened into ‘‘peweet, 
peweet,” rapidly repeated in a more joyous manner. 
The females are some ten days or more behind the males in 
arriving, and the courtship is quite delayed, and undemonstra- 
tive. But they arrange family matters in some way so as to 
have the nest built about the first of May ora little before, 
when the season favors. Bridges are not as numerous in Min- 
nesota as in Massachusetts, neither does our population in the 
rural districts disturb the bird by the numbers as much as 
there, yet true to its record in that country, it finds the bridge 
if there is one, but in its absence it accepts a great variety of 
places in which to build, notably the window caps under the 
porches of our summer cottages at the lakes, or in the open 
stables, or in a nook in the boat-house. Fiveeggs is usually 
the complement in a nest constructed of grasses, roots, moss 
and hairs, cemented together and onto the substance it is built 
upon, with bits of mud, It is lined with fine grasses, wool and 
feathers. The eggs are white with a creamy tint, Some eggs 
are thinly spotted over the larger end with reddish-brown. 
Cottagers at Lake Minnetonka, or any other of our suburban 
lakes, become greatly attached to this humble representative 
of the birds that spend the summer in the groves and forest 
bordering them. The first of its kind to seek those lovely 
retirements, anticipating their arrival by several weeks, they 
seem to welcome their coming, and at once begin their prepara- 
tion of their own comfortable tenements under the shelter of 
the projecting roof of the porches. Apparently the same 
pairs return, and repair the old nest from year to year. Many 
a time have I sat within a few yards of a nest built on the 
plate, under the roof of my Cosy Nook Cottage, overlook- 
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