The Western Wood Pewee 
he notes a flashing diamond in the second box, he picks a flawed string 
absently, but at a moment he seizes the bow, gives the cello a vicious 
double scrape, dear me, and his task is done for that time. 
But if our musician is faithful to the score of daylight, he makes 
himself responsible for its comings and its goings. Over how many millions 
of acres of western woodland is not the dear, doleful precentor the first to 
break the brooding silence of the night! Or ever the owl and the night- 
hawk have gone to bed, his voice booms out in the darkness and serves 
notice of impending day. And he it is who tolls the knell of day departing. 
Only the Mockingbird, lovesick and comfortless, disputes him,—he and 
the Nuttall Sparrow, rousing tipsily at goodness knows what hour to 
shout defiant babblings. 
The Western Wood Pewee is one of the later migrants, and a great 
loiterer at that. For although our local population reaches the southern 
part of the State by the 18th of April, and a nest with eggs has been taken 
at Pasadena on the ist of May, such birds as intend to breed in Alaska 
may be passing as late as 
Photo by D. R. Dickey 
Taken in San Diego County 
with 
A DAINTY OFFERING 
June ist. It is found as a 
summer resident wherever 
there is timber, even from 
sea-level to the limit of 
trees on the Sierran slope; 
yet it shows a marked 
preference for the more 
open situations, and a 
measurable though not 
slavish dependence upon 
water. 
The Pewee takes the 
public quite into her con¬ 
fidence in nest-building. 
Not only does she build 
in the open, without a 
vestige of leafy cover, but 
when she is fully freighted 
with nesting material she 
flies straight to the nest 
and proceeds to arrange it 
perfect nonchalance. If a 
nest with eggs is discovered in the 
bird’s absence, she is quite likely 
to return and settle to her egg s 
908 
