120 WAKE-ROBIN 
neutral in the contest, showed his culpable partial- 
ity by flying off with his paramour, and for the rest 
of the evening left the tree to his pugnacious con- 
sort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and 
tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, 
these disputes with the jealous females; and by the 
aid of the neighboring bachelors, who are never 
‘wanting among these and other birds, peace was at 
‘length completely restored by the restitution of the 
‘quiet and happy condition of monogamy.” 
~ Let me not forget to mention the nest under the 
mountain ledge, the nest of the common pewee, — 
' a modest mossy structure, with four pearl-white 
; eggs, — looking out upon some wild scene and over- 
hung by beetling crags. After all has been said 
about the elaborate, high-hung structures, few nests 
perhaps awaken more pleasant emotions in the mind 
of the beholder than this of the pewee, —the gray, 
silent rocks, with caverns and dens where the fox 
and the wolf lurk, and just out of their reach, in a 
little niche, as if it grew there, the mossy tenement! 
Nearly every high projecting rock in my range 
has one of these nests. Following a trout stream 
up a wild mountain gorge, not long since, I counted 
five in the distance of a mile, all within easy reach, 
but safe from the minks and the skunks, and well 
housed from the storms. In my native town I 
know a pine and oak clad hill, round-topped, with 
a bold, precipitous front extending half way around 
it. Near the top, and along this front or side, 
there crops out a ledge of rocks unusually high and 
