Under parts white; breast spotted and streaked on the sides.

White eye-ring. Range—United States, to Pacific slope. Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident.

Early in May you may have the good fortune to see this little bird of the woods strutting in and out of the garden shrubbery with a certain mock dignity, like a child wearing its father’s boots. Few birds can walk without appearing more or less ridiculous, and however gracefully and prettily it steps, this amusing little wagtail is no exception. When seen at all—which is not often, for it is shy—it is usually on the ground, not far from the shrubbery or a woodland thicket, under which it will quickly dodge out of sight at the merest suspicion of a footstep. To most people the bird is only a voice calling, “ teacher, teacher, teacher, TEACHER, TEACHER / ” as Mr. Burroughs has interpreted the notes that go off in pairs like a series of little explosions, softly at first, then louder and louder and more shrill until the bird that you at first thought far away seems to be shrieking his penetrating crescendo into your very ears. But you may look until you are tired before you find him in the high, dry wood, never near water.

In the driest parts of the wood, where the ground is thickly carpeted with dead leaves, you may some day notice a little bunch of them, that look as if a plant, in pushing its way up through the ground, had raised the leaves, rootlets, and twigs a trifle. 180

Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

Examine the spot more carefully, and on one side you find an opening, and within the ball of earth, softly lined with grass, lie four or five cream-white, speckled eggs. It is only by a happy accident that this nest of the ovenbird is discovered. The concealment could not be better. It is this peculiarity of nest construction—in shape like a Dutch oven—that has given the bird what DeKay considers its “trivial name.” Not far from the nest the parent birds scratch about in the leaves, like diminutive barnyard fowls, for the grubs and insects hiding under them. But at the first suspicion of an intruder their alarm becomes pitiful. Panic-stricken, they become fairly limp with fear, and drooping her wings and tail, the mother-bird drags herself hither and thither over the ground. As utterly bewildered as his mate, the male darts, flies, and tumbles about through the low branches, jerking and wagging his tail in nervous spasms until you have beaten a double-quick retreat. In nesting time, at evening, a very few have heard the “ luxurious nuptial song” of the ovenbird; but it is a song to haunt the memory forever afterward. Burroughs appears to be the first writer to record this “rare bit of bird melody.” “ Mounting by easy flight to the top of the tallest tree,” says the author of “ Wake-Robin,” “the ovenbird launches into the air with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song—clear, ringing, copious, rivalling the goldfinch’s in vivacity and the linnet’s in melody.”

Worm-eating Warbler (Helmintherus vermivorus) Wood Warbler family

Length—5. 50 inches. Less than an inch shorter than the English sparrow. Male and Female—Greenish olive above. Head yellowish brown, with two black stripes through crown to the nape; also black lines from the eyes to neck. Under parts buffy and Range—Easternwhite. parts of United States. Nests as far north as southern Illinois and southern Connecticut. Winters in the

Gulf States and southward. Migrations—May. September. Summer resident. 181

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In the Delaware Valley and along the same parallel, this inconspicuous warbler is abundant, but north of New Jersey it is rare enough to give an excitement to the day on which you discover it. No doubt it is commoner than we suppose, for its coloring blends so admirably with its habitats that it is probably very often overlooked. Its call-note, a common chirp, has nothing distinguishing about it, and all ornithologists confess to having been often misled by its song into thinking it came from the chipping sparrow. It closely resembles that of the pine warbler also. If it were as nervously active as most warblers, we should more often discover it, but it is quite as deliberate as a vireo, and in the painstaking way in which it often circles around a tree while searching for spiders and other insects that infest the trunks, it reminds us of the brown creeper. Sunny slopes and hillsides covered with thick undergrowth are its preferred foraging and nesting haunts. It is often seen hopping directly on the dry ground, where it places its nest, and it never mounts far above it. The well-drained, sunny situation for the home is chosen with the wisdom of a sanitary expert.

Acadian Flycatcher (Empidonax virescens) Flycatcher family

Called also: SMALL GREEN- CRESTED FLYCATCHER;

SMALL PEWEE

Length— 5.75 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Male—Dull olive above. Two conspicuous yellowish wing-bars.

Throat white, shading into pale yellow on breast Light gray or white underneath. Upper part of bill black; lower Female—Greenermandible flesh-color.above and Whitemore yelloweye-ring.below. Range—From Canada to Mexico, Central America, and West

Indies. Most common in south temperate latitudes. Winters in southerly limit of range. Migrations—April. September. Summer resident.

When all our northern landscape takes on the exquisite, soft green, gray, and yellow tints of early spring, this little flycatcher, in perfect color-harmony with the woods it darts among, comes 182

Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

out of the south. It might be a leaf that is being blown about, touched by the sunshine filtering through the trees, and partly shaded by the young foliage casting its first shadows.

Woodlands, through which small streams meander lazily, inviting swarms of insects to their boggy shores, make ideal hunting grounds for the Acadian flycatcher. It chooses a low rather than a high, conspicuous perch, that other members of its family invariably select; and from such a lookout it may be seen launching into the air after the passing gnat—darting downward, then suddenly mounting upward in its aerial hunt, the vigorous clicks of the beak as it closes over its tiny victims testifying to the bird’s unerring aim and its hearty appetite.

While perching, a constant tail-twitching is kept up; and a faint, fretful ‘ ‘ mbee-kee, tsbee-kee ’ ’ escapes the bird when inactively waiting for a dinner to heave in sight.

In the Middle Atlantic States its peeping sound and the click-ing of its particolored bill are infrequently heard in the village streets in the autumn, when the shy and solitary birds are enticed from the deep woods by a prospect of a more plentiful diet of insects, attracted by the fruit in orchards and gardens.

Never far from the ground, on two or more parallel branches, the shallow, unsubstantial nest is laid. Some one has cleverly described it as “a tuft of hay caught by the limb from a load driven under it,” but this description omits all mention of the quantities of blossoms that must be gathered to line the cradle for the tiny, pure white eggs.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (Empidonax flaviventris) Flycatcher family Length— 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male—Rather dark, but true olive-green above. Throat and breast yellowish olive, shading into pale yellow underneath, including wing linings and under tail coverts. Wings have yellowish bars. Whitish ring around eye. Upper part of Female—Smaller,bill black, underwithpartbrighterwhitish yellowor flesh-colored.under parts and more decidedly yellow wing-bars. Range—North America, from Labrador to Panama, and westward from the Atlantic to the plains. Winters in Central America.

183

)

Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds Migrations—May. September. Summer resident. More commonly a migrant only.

This is the most yellow of the small flycatchers and the only Eastern species with a yellow instead of a white throat. Without hearing its call-note, “ pse-ek-pse-ek,” which it abruptly sneezes rather than utters, it is quite impossible, as it darts among the trees, to tell it from the Acadian flycatcher, with which even Audubon confounded it. Both these little birds choose the same sort of retreats—well-timbered woods near a stream that attracts myriads of insects to its spongy shores—and both are rather shy and solitary. The yellow-bellied species has a far more northerly range, however, than its Southern relative or even the small green-crested flycatcher. It is rare in the Middle States, not common even in New England, except in the migrations, but from the Canada border northward its soft, plaintive whistle, which is its love-song, may be heard in every forest where it nests. All the flycatchers seem to make a noise with so much struggle, such convulsive jerkings of head and tail, and flutterings of the wings that, considering the scanty success of their musical attempts, it is surprising they try to lift their voices at all when the effort almost literally lifts them off their feet.

While this little flycatcher is no less erratic than its Acadian cousin, its nest is never slovenly. One couple had their home in a wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania; a Virginia creeper in New Jersey supported another cradle that was fully twenty feet above the ground; but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said to be invariably placed either in the moss by the brookside or in some old stump, should the locality be too swampy.

Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens Wood Warbler family Length—5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English sparrow.Male—Back and crown of head bright yellowish olive-green.

Forehead, band over eye, cheeks, and sides of neck rich yellow. Throat, upper breast, and stripe along sides black.

Underneath yellowish white. Wings and tail brownish olive, the former with two white bars, the latter with much 184

Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

white in outer quills. In autumn, plumage resembling the female’s. Female—Similar; chin yellowish; throat and breast dusky, the black being mixed with yellowish. Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson Bay to Central

America and Mexico. Nests north of Illinois and New York. Migrations—May.Winters in tropics.October. Common summer resident north of New Jersey.

There can be little difficulty in naming a bird so brilliantly and distinctly marked as this green, gold, and black warbler, that lifts up a few pure, sweet, tender notes, loud enough to attract attention when he visits the garden. "See-see, see-saw,” he sings, but there is a tone of anxiety betrayed in the simple, sylvan strain that always seems as if the bird needed reassuring, possibly due to the rising inflection, like an interrogative, of the last notes. However abundant about our homes during the migrations, this warbler, true to the family instinct, retreats to the woods to nest—not always so far away as Canada, the nesting ground of most warblers, for in many Northern States the bird is commonly found throughout the summer. Doubtless it prefers tall evergreen trees for its mossy, grassy nest; but it is not always particular, so that the tree be a tall one with a convenient fork in an upper branch. Early in September increased numbers emerge from the woods, the plumage of the male being less brilliant than when we saw it last, as if the family cares of the summer had proved too taxing. For nearly a month longer they hunt incessantly, with much flitting about the leaves and twigs at the ends of branches in the shrubbery and evergreens, for the tiny insects that the warblers must devour by the million during their all too brief visit.

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