1 66 Birds Every Child Should Know 
around her eggs, or to hang out of the nest, she 
may use onion skins, or oiled paper, or even 
fish scales; for what was once a protective 
custom, sometimes becomes degraded into a 
cheap imitation of the imitation in the furnish- 
ing of her house. Into an abandoned wood- 
peckers’ hole or a bluebirds’ cavity after the 
babies of these early nesters have flown, or into 
some unappropriated hollow in a tree, this fly- 
catcher carries enough grasses, weeds and 
feathers to keep her nestlings cozy during those 
rare days of June beloved by Lowell, but which 
Dr. Holmes observed are often so rare they 
are raw . 
PHCEBE 
Called also: Bridge Pewee; Dusky Flycatcher; 
Water Pewee 
The first of its family to come North, as well 
as the last to leave us for the winter, the phoebe 
appears toward the end of March to snap up 
the first insects warmed into life by the spring 
sunshine. Grackles in the evergreens, red- 
wings in the swampy meadows, bluebirds in the 
orchard may assure us that summer is on the 
way; but the homely, confiding phoebe, who 
comes close about our houses and barns, brings 
the good news home to us every hour. 
