420 
FLYCATCHERS. 
often examines the courts and gardens, at the same time feed- 
ing and training its young to the habits of their subsistence, 
and about the first week in October it retires south to pass the 
winter. 
The Pewee is a very expert and cautious flycatcher ; and as 
if aware of the drowsiness of insects in the absence of the sun’s 
broad light, he is on the alert at day-dawn after his prey. At 
this early period, and often in the dusk of evening, for the most 
part of summer till the middle of August, he serenades the 
neighborhood of his mansion from 3 to 4 or 5 o’clock in the 
morning, with an almost uninterrupted chanting ditty, sweet, 
but monotonous, like pe-ay pay-wee, pe-ay pay-wee, then in a 
little higher and less sing-song tone, his usual and more serious 
pee-d-wee. In dark and damp mornings this curious warble is 
sometimes continued nearly to 8 o’clock; and the effect of 
this tender, lulling lay in the gray dawn, before the awakening 
of other birds, and their mingling chorus, is singular and pecu- 
liarly pleasing. It is a gratulatory feeling of unmixed and 
placid delight, concomitant with the mild reviving light of the 
opening day and the perfect joy of the mated male, satisfied in 
every reasonable desire, — in short, a hymn of praise to the 
benevolent Author and Supporter of existence ! 
'I’owards the period of departure they become wholly silent ; 
anil driven to extremity, they may now be seen watching the 
stagnant pools and ponds, dipping occasionally into the still 
surface after their drowsy and languid prey. Like the King- 
bird, this species at times displays a tyrannical disposition ; and 
I have observed one to chase a harmless Sparrow to the ground 
for safety, who merely by inadvertence happened to approach 
the station he had temporarily chosen for collecting his insect 
game. 
The notes of peto-wdy peto-wdy pee-way are never uttered 
by this species; but on the 12th of February, 1830, in Ala- 
bama, I heard, at that season, a bird uttering this note, and 
several times afterwards I saw a rather large and dark Fly- 
catcher in the pine woods, to which I attributed this call, and 
which must be a distinct species, as its notes bear no resem- 
