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requires it, it may be seen perched on the highest dead twig of a tall tree. During the heat of the day it reposes in the shade of the woods. In the autumn it will choose the stalk of the mullein for its stand and sometimes the projecting angle of a rock jutting over a stream. It now and then alights on the ground for an instant, but this happens principally during winter or while engaged during spring in collecting the materials of which itsnest is composed, in our southern states, where many spend their time at this season.
    I have found this species abundant in the Floridas in winter, in full song and as lively as ever, also in Louisiana and the Carolinas, particularly in the cotton fields. None, however, to my knowledge, breed south of Charlestown in South Carolina and very few in the lower parts of that state. They leave Louisiana in February and return to it in October. Occasionally during winter they feed on berries of different kinds and are quite expert at discovering the insects impaled on thorns by the Loggerhead Shrike, and which they devour with avidity. I met with a few of these birds on the Magdeleine Islands, on the coast of Labrador and in Newfoundland.
    The nest of this species bears some resemblance to that of the Barn Swallow, the outside consisting of mud with which are firmly impacted grasses or mosses of various kinds deposited in regular strata. It is lined with delicate fibrous roots or shreds of vine bark, wool, horsehair and sometimes a few feathers. The greatest diameter across the open mouth is from five to six inches andthe depth from four to five. Both birds work alternately, bringing pellets of mud or damp earth mixed with moss, the latter of which is mostly disposed on the outer parts, and in some instances the whole exterior looks as if entirely formed of it. The fabric is firmly attached to a rock or a wall, the rafter of a house, &c. In the barrens of Kentucky I have found the nests fixed to the side of those curious places called
sinkholes
and as much as twenty feet below the surface of the ground. I have observed that when the Pewees return in spring, they strengthen their tenement by adding to the external parts attached to the rock as if to prevent it from falling, which after all it sometimes does when several years old. Instances of their taking possession of the nest of the Republican Swallow (
Hirundo fulva
) have been observed in the state of Maine. The eggs are from four to six, rather elongated, pure white, generally with a few reddish spots near the larger end.
    In Virginia and probably as far as New York they not unfrequently raise two broods, sometimes three, in a season. My learned friend, Professor [Thomas] Nuttall of [Harvard University] Massachusetts, thinks that the Pewee seldom raises more than one brood in the year in that state.
    This species ejects the hard particles of the wings, legs, abdomen and other parts of insects in small pellets in the manner of owls, goatsuckers and swallows.
    [The Pewee Flycatcher (Eastern Phoebe),
Sayornis phoebe
, appears in Plate 120 of
The Birds of America
.]

William Bakewell to Euphemia Gifford
“Lucy was married …”
    William Bakewell was Lucy Bakewell Audubon’s father, Euphemia Gifford a wealthy English cousin to whom many members of the extended Bakewell family regularly wrote
.
    Fatland Ford, Pennsylvania
    17 April 1808
    My dear Cousin,
    I should have written to you sooner but the difficulty of sending letters to England is much increased by the embargo on all American vessels & no ship has sailed from Philadelphia for Europe since that measure was enforced.
    You have no doubt heard of the embarrassment which it has occasioned amongst the Merchants & you would be much concerned to hear of my brother [Benjamin] being under the necessity of stopping payment. He has the mortification to find his past labors fruitless & that he must begin the world anew.
    I went over to New York to see what was best to be done & it was concluded