182 
PHCEBE. BRIDGE PEW EE. 
recognize the bird when I first saw it, partly because I was looking for something quite 
different but more particularly because I had not been accustomed to finding this species 
in the woods. Since that time, however, I have found that they prefer the wooded dis¬ 
tricts in the south, but they are occasionally found on the plantations, and at Key West I 
observed them about the gardens of the city. 
The Phoebes are among the first of our spring migrants to enter New England and 
their energetic, oft-repeated phe-be is frequently heard when the fields are white with 
snow. It must be quite difficult for these birds to find insects thus early in the season but 
they do manage to get them for all that I ever dissected, no matter how cold the weather, 
were filled with flies or beetles. I say all but I must make one exception; this was a 
specimen that I shot on the eighth of April, 1868, during a snow storm which was of a 
long duration. The bird was sitting in a hawthorn hedge when I procured it and, upon 
opening it, I found that it had been eating the dried berries of that shrub. Thus it will 
be seen that birds which are as strictly insectivorous as these Flycatchers will, when com¬ 
pelled by necessity, adopt a vegetable diet. 
Almost immediately after their arrival, the Phoebes select a suitable breeding place. 
In Massachusetts this is usually a nook on a conveniently placed prop under a bridge or 
barn, or in some out-building but, as they appear to prefer the neighborhood of water, 
the former named structures are more frequently chosen. At Ipswich there are certain 
bogs where peat was dug, when this substance was used for fuel, and as the meadows be¬ 
longed to farmers who often lived at a distance, they constructed small houses there in 
order to store the peat when it was dry. When coal became abundant and cheap, peat 
was abandoned and thus the little buildings became useless. They were left standing, 
however, much to the delight of the Phoebes who now occupy them every season. I do 
not think I ever entered one of these structures at the proper season but what I found a 
nest of one of these Flycatchers. There were never more than one to a house, however, 
for the Bridge Pewees never permit a second pair of the same species to build very near 
them. 
After a pair of these Flycatchers have taken possession of any particular place it is 
difficult to make them leave it; no matter how persistently they are robbed they will build 
anew, often choosing the exact spot from which the former nest was removed. The same 
pair or their successors must occupy the same site for many years as I once knew of an old 
mill under which a pair of Phoebes built season after season, until the building was de¬ 
stroyed by fire, when they merely moved to an adjacent edifice. If undisturbed they will 
often place a second nest over the first but I do not think that the old domicile is ever 
used without additional material. Two broods are nearly always reared the same season 
and a new lining is placed over the old one on which the fresh litter of eggs are then 
deposited. 
It is not common to find the nest of a Phoebe in other than the situations described 
in Massachusetts for there are many available places awaiting their choice, but in northern 
Maine, where out-houses, bridges, etc, are not as common, they breed in the shelter afford¬ 
ed by the upturned roots of trees. In buildings the nest is sometimes placed flat upon the 
