232 WOOD PEWEE FLYCATCHER. 



of our present account, is among the latest of our summer 

 birds, seldom arriving before the 12th or 15th of May ; fre- 

 quenting the shadiest high timbered woods, where there is 

 little underwood, and abundance of dead twigs and branches 

 shooting across the gloom ; generally in low situations ; builds 

 its nest on the upper side of a limb or branch, forming it 

 outwardly of moss, but using no mud, and lining it with 

 various soft materials. The female lays five white eggs, and 

 the first brood leaves the nest about the middle of June. 



This species is an exceeding expert fly-catcher. It loves to 

 sit on the high dead branches, amid the gloom of the woods, 

 calling out in a feeble plaintive tone, peto ivdy, peto ivdy, pee 

 way ; occasionally darting after insects ; sometimes making a 

 circular sweep of thirty or forty yards, snapping up numbers 

 in its way with great adroitness ; and returning to its position 

 and chant as before. In the latter part of August, its notes 

 are almost the only ones to be heard in the woods ; about 

 which time, also, it even approaches the city, where I have 

 frequently observed it busily engaged under trees, in solitary 

 courts, gardens, &c, feeding and training its young to their 

 profession. About the middle of September it retires to the 

 south, a full month before the other. 



Length, six inches ; breadth, ten ; back, dusky olive, in- 

 clining to greenish ; head, subcrested, and brownish black ; 

 tail, forked, and widening towards the tips, lower parts, pale 

 yellowish white. The only discriminating marks between 

 this and the preceding are the size and the colour of the 

 lower mandible, which in this is yellow, in the pewee black. 

 The female is difficult to be distinguished from the male. 



This species is far more numerous than the preceding, and 

 probably winters much farther south. The pewee was 

 numerous in North and South Carolina in February ; but the 

 wood pewee had not made its appearance in the lower parts 

 of Georgia, even so late as the 16th of March. 



