About the memory of the bird.
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“Phœbe! is all it has to say
In plaintive cadence o’er and o’er,
Like children who have lost their way,
And know their names, but nothing more.”
This poetical tribute is certainly very graceful, and would be true to life if the phonetic representation were a little more accurate. Instead of Phœbe, imagine the song to be Pe-e-w-e-e-e or Phe-e-w-e-e-e, and you will gain a clear idea of the minstrelsy of this songster of the wildwood. However, he frequently varies his tune,—to prevent its becoming monotonous, I opine. He sometimes closes his refrain with the falling inflection or circumflex, and sometimes with the rising, as the mood prompts him. In the former case the first syllable receives the greater emphasis and is the more prolonged, and in the latter this order is precisely reversed. When the last syllable is uttered with the rising circumflex, it is usually, if not always, cut off somewhat abruptly. Moreover, this minstrel often runs the two syllables of his song together,—a peculiarity that I have represented in my notes, taken while listening to the song, in this way: Phe-e-e-o-o-w-e-e-e! There is a characteristic swing about the melody that refuses to be caught in the mesh of letters and syllables.
In some of the pewee’s vocal efforts he does not get farther than the end of the first syllable. The song seems to be cut off short, as if the notes had stuck fast in the singer’s throat, or as if something had occurred to divert his mind from the song. Perhaps this hiatus is caused by the sudden appearance of an insect glancing by, which attracts the musician’s attention. This bird usually chooses a dead twig or limb in the woods as a perch, on which he sits and sings, turning his head from side to side, so that no flitting moth may escape him.
And what a persistent singer he is! He sings not only in the spring when other vocalists are in full tune, but also all summer long, never growing disheartened, even when the mercury rises far up into the nineties. What a pleasant companion he has been in my midsummer strolls as I have wearily patrolled the woods! On the sultriest August days, when all other birds were glad to keep mute, sitting on their shady perches with open mandibles and drooping wings, the dreamful, far-away strain of the wood-pewee has drifted, a welcome sound, to my ears through the dim aisles. He seems to be a friend in need. How often, when the heat has almost overcome me, as I pursued my daily beat, that song has put new vigor into my veins! When Mr. Lowell wrote that
“The phœbe scarce whistles