222 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



These two pewee nests are remarkably alike in their 

 position and composition and form, though half a mile 

 apart. They are both placed on a horizontal branch 

 of a young oak (one about fourteen, the other about 

 eighteen, feet from ground) and three to- five feet from 

 main trunk, in a young oak wood. Both rest directly 

 on a horizontal fork, and such is their form and com- 

 position that they have almost precisely the same color 

 and aspect from below and from above. 



The first is on a dead limb, very much exposed, is 

 three inches in diameter outside to outside, and two 

 inches in diameter within, the rim being about a quarter 

 of an inch thick, and it is now one inch deep within. 

 Its framework is white pine needles, especially in the 

 rim, and a very little fine grass stem, covered on the 

 rim and all without closely with small bits of lichen 

 (cetraria ?), slate-colored without and blackish beneath, 

 and some brown caterpillar (?) or cocoon (?) silk with 

 small seed-vessels in it. They are both now thin and 

 partially open at the bottom, so that I am not sure they 

 contain all the original lining. This one has no distinct 

 lining, unless it is a very little green usnea amid the 

 loose pine-needles. The lichens of the nest would readily 

 be confounded with the lichens of the limb. Looking 

 down on it, it is a remarkably round and neat nest. 



The second nest is rather more shallow now and 

 half an inch wider without, is lined with much more 

 usnea (the willow down which I saw in it June 27 is 

 gone; perhaps they cast it out in warm weather !), and 

 shows a little of some slender brown catkin (oak ?) be- 

 neath, without. 



