60 
BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
usually seen in pairs. I have found a pair every spring near the oak 
woods on the Madbury road, about a mile and a half from this village, 
on the twenty-third of iMay. They remain in the vicinity for about a 
week, and then disappear. They go south in the latter part of August 
so quietly that they are far less often observed than in spring. M}- 
only fall record is August 23. 
They nest in hollow trees, sometimes in orchards, but more often 
in the woods. I have found them the most difficult of the flycatchers 
to approach. 
Sayornis phoebe. Pewee or PhcebE: 456. 
My earliest record of a Fewee's arrival is April i. They are gener- 
ally common by the tenth, and select a locality for their nest, though 
not the exact site, at once. Most of them are gone by the first of 
October, a few stay through the first week, and I have observed one 
as late as the seventeenth of that month. In mild seasons the first 
comers are males, the females following a few days later. But when 
the migration is belated by a backward spring, the sexes generally 
come simultaneously. I never saw any signs of courtship between 
them. The male, when he arrives first, selects his home and awaits 
the coming of a mate (whether they mate here or elsewhere, I do not 
know), and when she appears there are sure signs of joy. It has 
always seemed to me that the greetings are those of old associates 
rather than those of new acquaintances, and for that reason I hold the 
opinion that they are mated on arrival. I well remember the meeting 
of a pair and the subsequent proceedings. The male had been on 
hand for more than a week, sitting on the posts of the barnyard fence, 
flirting his tail, and singing cheerfully, — and, by the way, I know of 
no more cheerful sound on an April morning than the buoyant tones 
of a Pewee. It was about nine o'clock one sunny morning when his 
expected mate arrived. The greetings were scarcely over before the 
male, by short flights and coaxing tones, began to approach the place 
he had chosen for a nest. It was in the barn cellar on a bit of 
shingle projecting out from the top ot a post. He led her without difficulty 
to a place on the fence nearest the barn, but it required a good deal 
of persuasion before she would fly underneath. Time and again he 
left his place beside her on the fence, and, hovering for a moment, as 
if hoping to be followed, went in to the chosen spot alone. Finally, 
after much coaxing, her timidity was so far overcome that she fol- 
lowed, and, poising before the shingle, looked over the place, but 
