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dainty, gentle, aristocratic-looking birds, a trifle heavy and indolent, perhaps, when walking on the ground or perching; but as they fly in compact squads just above the tree-tops their flight is exceedingly swift and graceful.

Bay-breasted Warbler (Dendroica castanea) Wood Warbler family Length—5.25 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English Male—Crown,sparrow. chin, throat, upper breast, and sides dull chestnut. Forehead, sides of head, and cheeks black. Above olive-gray, streaked with black. Underneath buffy. Two white wing-bars. Outer tail quills with white patches on Female—Hastips. Cream-whitemore greenish-olivepatch on above.either side of neck. Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson’s Bay to Central

America. Nests north of the United States. Winters in tropical limit of range. Migrations—May. September. Rare migrant.

The chestnut breast of this capricious little visitor makes him look like a diminutive robin. In spring, when these warblers are said to take a more easterly route than the one they choose in autumn to return by to Central America, they may be so suddenly abundant that the fresh green trees and shrubbery of the garden will contain a dozen of the busy little hunters. Another season they may pass northward either by another route or leave your garden unvisited; and perhaps the people in the very next town may be counting your rare bird common, while it is simply perverse. Whether common or rare, before your acquaintance has had time to ripen into friendship, away go the freaky little creatures to nest in the tree-tops of the Canadian coniferous forests.

Chestnut-sided Warbler (Dendroica pennsylvanica) Wood Warbler family Called also: BLOODY-SIDED WARBLER Length—About 5 inches. Over an inch shorter than the English sparrow. Male—Top of head and streaks in wings yellow. A black line 90

BOHEMIAN WAXWING.

Life-size.

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running through the eye and round back of crown, and a black spot in front of eye, extending to cheeks. Ear coverts, chin, and underneath white. Back greenish gray and slate, streaked with black. Sides of bird chestnut. Wings, which are streaked with black and yellow, have yellowish-white bars. Very dark tail with white patches on inner vanes of Female—Similar,the outer quills.but duller. Chestnut sides are often scarcely Range—Easternapparent. North America, from Manitoba and Labrador to Migrations—May.the tropics, whereSeptember.it winters.Summer resident, most common in migrations.

In the Alleghanies, and from New Jersey and Illinois northward, this restless little warbler nests in the bushy borders of woodlands and the undergrowth of the woods, for which he forsakes our gardens and orchards after a very short visit in May. While hopping over the ground catching ants, of which he seems to be inordinately fond, or flitting actively about the shrubbery after grubs and insects, we may note his coat of many colors patchwork in which nearly all the warbler colors are curiously combined. With drooped wings that often conceal the bird’s chestnut sides, which are his chief distinguishing mark, and with tail erected like a redstart’s, he hunts incessantly. Here in the garden he is as refreshingly indifferent to your interest in him as later in his breeding haunts he is shy and distrustful. His song is bright and animated, like that of the yellow warbler.

Golden-winged Warbler (Helminthophila chrysoptera) Wood Warbler family Length—About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the

English sparrow. Male—Yellow crown and yellow patches on the wings. Upper parts bluish gray, sometimes tinged with greenish. Stripe through the eye and throat black. Sides of head, chin, and line over the eye white. Underneath white, grayish on sides. A few white markings on outer tail feathers. Female—Crown duller; gray where male is black, with olive upper parts and grayer underneath.

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Range— From Canadian border to Central America, where it Migrations—May.winters. September. Summer resident.

After one has seen a golden-winged warbler fluttering hither and thither about the shrubbery of a park within sight and sound of a great city’s distractions and with blissful unconcern of them all, partaking of a hearty lunch of insects that infest the leaves before one’s eyes, one counts the bird less rare and shy than one has been taught to consider it. Whoever looks for a warbler with gaudy yellow wings will not find the golden-winged variety. His wings have golden patches only, and while these are distinguishing marks, they are scarcely prominent enough features to have given the bird the rather misleading name he bears. But, then, most warblers’ names are misleading. They serve their best purpose in cultivating patience and other gentle virtues in the novice. Such habits and choice of haunts as characterize the blue-winged warbler are also the golden-winged’s. But their voices are quite different, the former’s being sharp and metallic, while the latter’s gi?e, gee, gee comes more lazily and without accent.

Myrtle Warbler (Dendroica coronata) Wood Warbler family

Called also: YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER; MYRTLE-

BIRD; YELLOW-CROWNED WARBLER

Length—5 to 5. 5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male—In simmer plumage A yellow patch on top of head, lower back, and either side of the breast. Upper parts bluish slate, streaked with black. Upper breast black; throat white; all other under parts whitish, streaked with black.

Two white wing-bars, and tail quills have white spots near the tip. In winter Upper parts olive-brown, streaked with black; the yellow spot on lower back the only yellow mark remaining. Wing-bars grayish. Female— Resembles male in winter plumage. Range—Eastern North America. Occasional on Pacific slope.

Summers from Minnesota and northern New England northward to Fur Countries. Winters from Middle States south- 92

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ward into Central America; a few often remaining at the northern United States all the winter. Migrations—April. October. November. Also, but more rarely, a winter resident.

The first of the warblers to arrive in the spring and the last to leave us in the autumn, some even remaining throughout the northern winter, the myrtle warbler, next to the summer yellowbird, is the most familiar of its multitudinous kin. Though we become acquainted with it chiefly in the migrations, it impresses us by its numbers rather than by any gorgeousness of attire. The four yellow spots on crown, lower back, and sides are its distinguishing marks; and in the autumn these marks have dwindled to only one, that on the lower back or rump. The great difficulty experienced in identifying any warbler is in its restless habit of flitting about. For a few days in early May we are forcibly reminded of the Florida peninsula, which fairly teems with these birds; they become almost superabundant, a distraction during the precious days when the rarer species are quietly slipping by, not to return again for a year, perhaps longer, for some warblers are notoriously irregular in their routes north and south, and never return by the way they travelled in the spring.

But if we look sharply into every group of myrtle warblers, we are quite likely to discover some of their dainty, fragile cousins that gladly seek the escort of birds so fearless as they. By the last of May all the warblers are gone from the neighborhood except the constant little summer yellowbird and redstart.

In autumn, when the myrtle warblers return after a busy enough summer passed in Canadian nurseries, they chiefly haunt those regions where juniper and bay-berries abound. These latter (Myrica cerifera), or the myrtle wax-berries, as they are sometimes called, and which are the bird’s favorite food, have given it their name. Wherever the supply of these berries is sufficient to last through the winter, there it may be found foraging in the scrubby bushes. Sometimes driven by cold and hunger from the fields, this hardiest member of a family that properly belongs to the tropics, seeks shelter and food close to the outbuildings on the farm.

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Parula Warbler (Compsotblypis americana) Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WARBLER Length—4.5 to 4.75 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than the English sparrow. Male and Female—Slate-colored above, with a greenish-yellow or bronze patch in the middle of the back. Chin, throat, and breast yellow. A black, bluish, or rufous band across the breast, usually lacking in female. Underneath white, sometimes marked with rufous on sides, but these markings are variable. Wings have two white patches; outer tail feathers Range—Easternhave white Northpatch America.near the end.Winters from Florida southward. Migrations—April. October. Summer resident.

Through an open window of an apartment in the very heart of New York City, a parula warbler flew this spring of 1897, surely the daintiest, most exquisitely beautiful bird visitor that ever voluntarily lodged between two brick walls.

A number of such airy, tiny beauties flitting about among the blossoms of the shrubbery on a bright May morning and swaying on the slenderest branches with their inimitable grace, is a sight that the memory should retain into old age. They seem the very embodiment of life, joy, beauty, grace; of everything lovely that birds by any possibility could be. Apparently they are wafted about the garden; they fly with no more effort than a dainty lifting of the wings, as if to catch the breeze, that seems to lift them as it might a bunch of thistledown. They go through a great variety of charming posturings as they hunt for their food upon the blossoms and tender fresh twigs, now creeping like a nuthatch along the bark and peering into the crevices, now gracefully swaying and balancing like a goldfinch upon a slender, pendent stem. One little sprite pauses in its hunt for the insects to raise its pretty head and trill a short and wiry song.

But the parula warbler does not remain long about the gardens and orchards, though it will not forsake us altogether for the Canadian forests, where most of its relatives pass the summer. It retreats only to the woods near the water, if may be, or to just as close a counterpart of a swampy southern woods, where the 94

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Spanish or Usnea “ moss” drapes itself over the cypresses, as it can find here at the north. Its rarely beautiful nest, that hangs suspended from a slender branch very much like the Baltimore oriole’s, is so woven and festooned with this moss that its concealment is perfect

Black-throated Blue Warbler

(Dendroica ccerulescens) Wood Warbler family Length— 5. 30 inches. About an inch shorter than the English Male—Slate-color,sparrow. not blue above; lightest on forehead and darkest on lower back. Wings and tail edged with bluish.

Cheeks, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides black. Breast and underneath white. White spots on wings, and a little white on tail. Female—Olive-green above; underneath soiled yellow. Wing- Range—Easternspots inconspicuous.North America,Tail generallyfrom Labradorhas a faintto tropics,bluish wheretinge. it winters. Migrations—May. September. Usually a migrant only in the

United States.

Whoever looks for this beautifully marked warbler among the bluebirds, will wish that the man who named him had possessed a truer eye for color. But if the name so illy fits the bright slate-colored male, how grieved must be his little olive-and-yellow mate to answer to the name of black-throated blue warbler when she has neither a black throat nor a blue feather! It is not easy to distinguish her as she flits about the twigs and leaves of the garden in May or early autumn, except as she is seen in company with her husband, whose name she has taken with him for better or for worse. The white spot on the wings should always be looked for to positively identify this bird.

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