64 
MUSCICAPA RAPAX. 
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 leave 
the nest about the middle of June. 
This species is an exceeding expert flycatcher. It 
loves to sit on the high dead branches, amid the gloom 
of the woods, calling out in a feeble, plaintive tone, 
peto way , peto way, 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, 
inclining to greenish ; head, subcrested, and brownish 
black ; tail, forked and widening towards the tips, 
lower parts, pale yellowish white. The only discrimi- 
nating 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 16 th of 
March. 
