r" snapping up its
insect game.

The pewee belongs to quite a large family of birds, all of whom have
strong family traits, and who are not the most peaceable and harmonious
of the sylvan folk. They are pugnacious, harsh-voiced, angular in form
and movement, with flexible tails and broad, flat, bristling beaks that
stand to the face at the angle of a turn-up nose, and most of them wear
a black cap pulled well down over their eyes. Their heads are large,
neck and legs short, and elbows sharp. The wild Irishman of them all
is the great crested flycatcher, a large, leather-colored or
sandy-complexioned bird that prowls through the woods, uttering its
harsh, uncanny note and waging fierce warfare upon its fellows. The
exquisite of the family, and the braggart of the orchard, is the
kingbird, a bully that loves to strip the feathers off its more timid
neighbors such as the bluebird, that feeds on the stingless bees of the
hive, the drones, and earns the reputation of great boldness by teasing
large hawks, while it gives a wide berth to little ones.

The best beloved of them all is the phoebe-bird, one of the firstlings
of the spring, of whom so many of our poets have made affectionate
mention.

The wood pewee is the sweetest voiced, and, notwithstanding the
ungracious things I have said of it and of its relations, merits to
the full all Trowbridge's pleasant fancies. His poem is indeed a very
careful study of the bird and its haunts, and is good poetry as well as
good ornithology:--

"The listening Dryads hushed the woods;
The boughs were thick, and thin and few
The golden ribbons fluttering through;
Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods
The lindens lifted to the blue;
Only a little forest-brook
The farthest hem of silence shook;
When in the hollow shades I heard--
Was it a spirit or a bird?
Or, strayed from Eden, desolate,
Some Peri calling to her mate,
Whom nevermore her mate would cheer?
'Pe-ri! pe-ri! peer!'

. . . . . . . .

"To trace it in its green retreat
I sought among the boughs in vain;
And followed still the wandering strain,
So melancholy and so sweet,
The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain.
'T was now a sorrow in the air,
Some nymph's immortalized despair
Haunting the woods and waterfalls;
And now, at