"Pewee, pewee, pe-e-er!" cried a little voice.
"There he is, crying 'peek-a-boo' again," said Dodo. "Please, Olive, won't you tell us the table for the Chimney Swift now?"
"Certainly; and there is plenty of light yet if you wish to write it down."
Sooty brown. Sharply pointed tail-feathers.
A Summer Citizen of eastern North America from Florida to the Fur Countries.
An excellent neighbor--a friend of the farmer and his cattle. An officer in the guild of Sky Sweepers, who shoots through the air in the shape of a bow and arrow.
"Come softly," said the Doctor, returning to the roadside; "I have found the Pewee's nest; it is quite new, and has no eggs in it as yet. This way--up along this ledge of rocks, and you can almost look into it." They moved quietly over the rocks until they reached a pepperidge tree, when the Doctor motioned them to stop and pointed to one of its branches which stretched over the rock. There was a flat nest with an evenly rounded edge, all covered with lichen scales outside.
"It is just like a Hummingbird's nest," whispered Nat.
"Only flatter, more like a saucer than a cup," said Rap. "Is it made of plant-down, too?"
"No--of fine grasses, rootlets, and bits of bark," said the Doctor; "and in a few days it will hold three or four creamy-white eggs, prettily wreathed around one end with dark-brown spots."
"Pewee, pewee, pe-e-er!" cried the nest owner very sadly.
"We are going home, so you needn't worry, dear," said Dodo. "Good-night."
The sun was quite low when the party drove out of the lane; the birds were singing their very best, and Olive stopped the horses on top of the next hill, that they might all look at the beautiful twilight picture around them.
"How quickly the sun slides when it once begins to go!" said Nat. "It looks as if it were going into a cage with the striped clouds for bars."
"Shirk--shirk--boom!" A large bird that had been sailing about overhead dropped through the air till it was almost over the surrey, then turned suddenly and darted upward again.
"That's a Nighthawk--don't you remember the bird we heard early one morning in the river woods? He's looking for small birds to eat," answered Rap.
"He is called the Nighthawk, but never eats anything except beetles, flies, and other insects," said the Doctor, "for he is not a real Hawk. He takes his name from the fact that he dashes about at twilight and in cloudy weather like a Hawk; but his broad, shallow mouth is only suitable for insect-eating, like his cousin's, the Chimney Swift's, and the beak is equally small and feeble, not at all like the strong hooked one of a cannibal bird. Look overhead!"