The Say Phoebe 
southward, abundantly in the San Diegan district, more sparingly on the islands. 
Never reported from the humid coastal strip. 
Authorities.—Gambel (Tyrannula Saya), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. iii., 
1847, p. 156 (Calif.); Fisher, N. Am. Fauna, no. 7, 1893, p. 61 (Owens Valley, Death 
Valley, etc.; occurrence, habits); Bendire, Life Hist. N. Am. Birds, vol. ii., 1895, p. 
276, pi. 1, fig. (eggs )• Beal, U. S. Dept. Agric., Biol. Surv. Bull., no. 44, 1912, p. 36 
(food); Grinnell, LTniv. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. xii., 1914, p. 149 (Colorado Valley). 
Taken in Kern County Photo by the Author 
GENERAL VIEW OF NESTING HAUNT 
A GENTLE MELANCHOLY possesses the soul of all Pewees, and 
Sayornis sayns is the most desponding of the lot. It is impossible to 
guess what ancestral hardship could have stamped itself so indelibly upon 
any creature with wings. Perhaps the bird is haunted by the memory 
of that northern Eden once obliterated by the ice-sheet. Perhaps 
alkaline waters are bad for little livers. I do not know. Your guess is 
as good as mine. Choooory kuteew. This “choory” note, heard on a 
gray day in December, puts one in the same mental attitude as that 
induced by the modest mewing of a cat. I want to stop and stroke its 
head, and say in sympathetic falsetto, “Poor little kittens!” 
In keeping with its ascetic nature the Pewee haunts open, solitary 
places, drear pastures tenanted by mullein stalks, bleak hillsides swept 
by wintry gales, dull dobe cliffs with their solemn, silent flutings. Or, 
