282 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
(a). Six inches long or more. Tail forked; crown-feathers 
erectile. Bill black above only. Wings always with two nar- 
row whitish bars. Otherwise the coloration is essentially that 
of the Common Pewee (III). (See p. 273.) 
(6). The nest is artistic, and in its character quite unique, 
though in some respects not unlike that of the Hummingbird. 
It is composed chiefly of fine grasses, or weed-stalks, which are 
mixed with the silk of spiders or caterpillars. It is rather 
shallow, and, being thickly covered outside with lichens, seems 
a part of the moss-grown limb to which it is “saddled.” It is 
usually placed on a horizontal branch of the oak, or some like 
tree, in a grove or rather lightly timbered wood, from ten to 
forty feet above the ground. Near Boston, four or five eggs 
are laid about the middle of June. They average -70 x ‘55 
of an inch, and are buff or creamy, with a few large markings, 
at the greater end, of lilac and umber or reddish-brown. 
(c). The Wood Pewee is one of the four common flyeatchers 
in southern New England, and even in the northern parts is 
not a rare summer-resident. He is one of the latest migrants 
in spring, and does not reach Massachusetts until the third or 
often the fourth week of May. He announces his arrival by 
his plaintive notes, which he utters in his favorite haunts, the 
woods and groves. These places he rarely leaves, for he is 
rather reserved and unsocial, having little to do with man or 
other kinds of birds, though very affectionate to his mate and 
young. There is sometimes an air of seeming melancholy 
about him which is quite touching, but undoubtedly he either 
takes a pleasure in sadness, or else he is not sad. He is not 
very often seen, but he may easily be observed from his habit 
of returning to one spot. I have known one to choose the 
dead limb of a pine, to which he resorted every evening for 
about an hour, and sometimes in the course of the day. There 
I often saw him with his-mnate, but since the building of their 
nest the place has been deserted. The limit of his wanderings 
from his nest seems to be about one-eighth of a mile, and, to a 
certain extent, he may at certain hours be found at nearly the 
same place from day to day. 
