4 
COMMON BIRDS: SECOND SERIES. 
phee'-bee' note of the Chickadee. Both sexes also utter a sharp 
chip. When excited, and always on alighting, the Phoebe executes 
a peculiar movement of its tail, sideways and up. Like its cousin, 
the Kingbird, it chooses a perch where it can watch for gnats and 
flies. Its perch is not quite so conspicuous or high as that of the 
Kingbird, and its flight generally not so lofty or prolonged. The 
sexes are alike. A few Phcebes remain in New England till 
October, and many winter in the extreme South. Its early appear¬ 
ance, its constancy to its chosen home, and its fearless disposition, 
make the Phcebe a well-known and beloved tenant of country 
places. 
Wood Pewee. 8. 
[HORIZOPUS VIRENS.] 
The Wood Pewee is the last of our summer birds to return in 
spring. It is often the third week in May before the drawling 
pee'-ee-wee '', which has given the bird its name, is heard from the 
wood or grove where it spends the summer. Like the rest of the 
Flycatcher family, it hunts winged insects. A dead twig in 
the shade of some tall tree serves as its lookout post. Its nest is 
often built on a lichen-covered limb, and so covered with delicate 
green or gray lichens as to be almost indistinguishable from the 
limb itself. It is in the form of a shallow cup, and in it are laid 
three or four buff or cream-colored eggs, marked at the larger end 
with a few large, reddish-brown marks. The Pewee’s song is one of 
/the striking sounds of the woods; it generally consists of two parts, 
an upward drawl of three notes, followed a moment later by a 
downward fall of extreme sweetness and plaintiveness. Toward 
the end of August only the first phrase is given, and this is short¬ 
ened by the omission of the last long note, so that the whole song 
is only pee’-ah. A few Pewees linger into late September, but the 
majority go early in the month or even in August, and pass into 
(,’entral America to spend the winter. 
