No doubt, the particularly mild, sweet amiability of the yellow warbler is responsible for the persistent visitations of the cowbird, from which it is a conspicuous sufferer. In the exquisite, neat little matted cradle of glistening milk-weed flax, lined with down from the fronds of fern, the skulking housebreaker deposits her surreptitious egg for the little yellow mother-bird to hatch and tend. But amiability is not the only prominent trait in the female yellow warbler’s character. She is clever as well, and quickly builds a new bottom on her nest, thus sealing up the cowbird’s egg, and depositing her own on the soft, spongy floor above it. This operation has been known to be twice repeated, until the nest became three stories high, when a persistent cowbird made such unusual architecture necessary.

The most common nesting place of the yellow warbler is in low willows along the shores of streams.

205

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Yellow-breasted Chat (leteria virens) Wood Warbler family Called also: POLYGLOT CHAT Length—7.5 inches. A trifle over an inch longer than the English sparrow. Male and Female— Uniform olive-green above. Throat, breast, and under side of wings bright, clear yellow. Underneath white. Sides grayish. White line over the eye, reaching to base of bill and forming partial eye-ring. Also white line on sides of throat. Bill and feet black. Range—North America, from Ontario to Central America and westward to the plains. Most common in Middle Atlantic Migrations—EarlyStates. May. Late August or September. Summer resident.

This largest of the warblers might be mistaken for a dozen birds collectively in as many minutes; but when it is known that the jumble of whistles, parts of songs, chuckles, clucks, barks, quacks, whines, and wails proceed from a single throat, the yellow-breasted chat becomes a marked specimen forthwith a conspicuous individual never to be confused with any other member of the feathered tribe. It is indeed absolutely unique. The catbird and the mocking-bird are rare mimics; but while the chat is not their equal in this respect, it has a large repertoire of weird, uncanny cries all its own—a power of throwing its voice, like a human ventriloquist, into unexpected corners of the thicket or meadow. In addition to its extraordinary vocal feats, it can turn somersaults and do other clown-like stunts as well as any variety actor on the Bowery stage.

Only by creeping cautiously towards the roadside tangle, where this “rollicking polyglot” is entertaining himself and his mate, brooding over her speckled eggs in a bulky nest set in a most inaccessible briery part of the thicket, can you hope to hear him rattle through his variety performance. Walk boldly or noisily past his retreat, and there is “ silence there and nothing more.” But two very bright eyes peer out at you through the undergrowth, where the trim, elegant-looking bird watches you with quizzical suspicion until you quietly seat yourself and 206

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Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

assume silent indifference. “ Whew, whew / ” he begins, and then immediately, with evident intent to amuse, he rattles off an indescribable, eccentric medley until your ears are tired listening. With bill uplifted, tail drooping, wings fluttering at his side, he cuts an absurd figure enough, but not so comical as when he rises into the air, trailing his legs behind him stork-fashion. This surely is the clown among birds. But zany though he is, he is as capable of devotion to his Columbine as Punchinello, and remains faithfully mated year after year. However much of a tease and a deceiver he may be to the passer-by along the roadside, in the privacy of the domestic circle he shows truly lovable traits.

He has the habit of singing in his unmusical way on moonlight nights. Probably his ventriloquial powers are cultivated not for popular entertainment, but to lure intruders away from his nest.

Maryland Yellowthroat (Geotblypis trichas Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLACK-MASKED GROUND WARBLER Length—5.33 inches. Just an inch shorter than the typical Eng- Male—Olive-graylish sparrow. on head, shading to olive-green on all the other upper parts. Forehead, cheeks, and sides of head black, like a mask, and bordered behind by a grayish line. Throat Female—Eitherand breast totallybright yellow,lacks blackgrowingmasksteadilyor its placepaler underneath.is indicated Range—Easternby only a duskyNorthtint.America,She westis smallerto theandplains;duller.most common east of the Alleghanies. Nests from the Gulf States to Lab- Migrations—May.rador and Manitoba;September.wintersCommonsouth of GulfsummerStatesresident.to Panama.

“Given a piece of marshy ground with an abundance of skunk cabbage and a fairly dense growth of saplings, and near by a tangle of green brier and blackberry, and you will be pretty sure to have it tenanted by a pair of yellowthroats, ” says Dr. Abbott, who found several of their nests in skunk-cabbage plants, which he says are favorite cradles. No animal cares to touch this plant if it can be avoided; but have the birds themselves no sense of smell?

207

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Before and after the nesting season these active birds, plump of form, elegant of attire, forceful, but not bold, enter the scrubby pastures near our houses and the shrubbery of old-fashioned, overgrown gardens, and peer out at the human wanderer therein with a charming curiosity. The bright eyes of the male masquerader shine through his black mask, where he intently watches you from the tangle of syringa and snowball bushes; and as he flies into the laburnum with its golden chain of blossoms that pale before the yellow of his throat and breast, you are so impressed with his grace and elegance that you follow too audaciously, he thinks, and off he goes. And yet this is a bird that seems to delight in being pursued. It never goes so far away that you are not tempted to follow it, though it be through dense undergrowth and swampy thickets, and it always gives you just glimpse enough of its beauties and graces before it flies ahead, to invite the hope of a closer inspection next time. When it dives into the deepest part of the tangle, where you can imagine it hunting about among the roots and fallen leaves for the larvae, caterpillars, spiders, and other insects on which it feeds, it sometimes amuses itself with a simple little song between the hunts. But the bird’s indifference, you feel sure, arises from preoccupation rather than rudeness. If, however, your visit to the undergrowth is unfortunately timed and there happens to be a bulky nest in process of construction on the ground, a quickly repeated, vigorous chit, pit, quit, impatiently inquires the reason for your bold intrusion. Withdraw discreetly and listen to the love-song that is presently poured out to reassure his plain little maskless mate. The music is delivered with all the force and energy of his vigorous nature and penetrates to a surprising distance. " Follow me, follow me, follow me,” many people hear him say; others write the syllables, “ IVichity, wichity, wichity, wichity”; and still others write them, “I beseech you, I beseech you, 1 beseech you,” though the tones of this self-assertive bird rather command than entreat. Mr. Frank Chapman says of the yellowthroats: “They sing throughout the summer, and in August add a flight-song to their repertoire. This is usually uttered toward evening, when the bird springs several feet into the air, hovers for a second, and then drops back to the bushes.”

208

BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER.

Life-size.

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Blackburnian Warbler (Dendroica blackburnice) Wood Warbler family Called also: HEMLOCK WARBLER; ORANGE-THROATED

WARBLER; TORCH-BIRD

Length—4. 5 to 5. 5 inches. An inch and a half smaller than the

English sparrow. Male—Head black, striped with orange-flame; throat and breast orange, shading through yellow to white underneath; wings, tail, and part of back black, with white markings. Female—Olive-brown above, shading into yellow on breast, and paler under parts. Range—Eastern North America to plains. Winters in tropics. Migrations—May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.

“The orange-throated warbler would seem to be his right name, his characteristic cognomen,” says John Burroughs, in ever-delightful “Wake Robin”; “but no, he is doomed to wear the name of some discoverer, perhaps the first who robbed his nest or rifled him of his mate— Blackburn; hence, Blackburnian warbler. The burn seems appropriate enough, for in these dark evergreens his throat and breast show like flame. He has a very fine warble, suggesting that of the redstart, but not especially musical.” No foliage is dense enough to hide, and no autumnal tint too brilliant to outshine this luminous little bird that in May, as it migrates northward to its nesting ground, darts in and out of the leafy shadows like a tongue of fire.

It is by far the most glorious of all the warblers—a sort of diminutive oriole. The quiet-colored little mate flits about after him, apparently lost in admiration of his fine feathers and the ease with which his thin tenor voice can end his lover’s warble in a high Z. Take a good look at this attractive couple, for in May they leave us to build a nest of bark and moss in the evergreens of Canada—that paradise for warblers—or of the Catskills and Adiron-dacks, and in autumn they hurry south to escape the first frosts.

209

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Redstart (Setopbaga ruticilla) Wood Warbler family Called also: YELLOW-TAILED WARBLER Length— 5 to 5.5 inches. Male—In spring plumage: Head, neck, back, and middle breast glossy black, with blue reflections. Breast and underneath white, slightly flushed with salmon, increasing to bright salmon-orange on the sides of the body and on the wing linings. Occasional specimens show orange-red. Tail feathers partly black, partly orange, with broad black band across the end. Orange markings on wings. Bill and feet black.

In autumn: Fading into rusty black, olive, and yellow. Female—Olive-brown, and yellow where the male is orange.

Young browner than the females. Range—North America to upper Canada. West occasionally, as far as the Pacific coast, but commonly found in summer in the Atlantic and Middle States. Migrations—Early May. End of September. Summer resident.

Late some evening, early in May, when one by one the birds have withdrawn their voices from the vesper chorus, listen for the lingering " ’tsee, ’tsee/tseet ” (usually twelve times repeated in a minute), that the redstart sweetly but rather monotonously sings from the evergreens, where, as his tiny body burns in the twilight, Mrs. Wright likens him to a “wind-blown firebrand, half glowing, half charred.”

But by daylight this brilliant little warbler is constantly on the alert. It is true he has the habit, like the flycatchers (among which some learned ornithologists still class him), of sitting pensively on a branch, with fluffy feathers and drooping wings; but the very next instant he shows true warbler blood by making a sudden dash upward, then downward through the air, tumbling somersaults, as if blown by the wind, flitting from branch to branch, busily snapping at the tiny insects hidden beneath the leaves, clinging to the tree-trunk like a creeper, and singing between bites. Possibly he will stop long enough in his mad chase to open and shut his tail, fan-fashion, with a dainty egotism that, in the peacock, becomes rank vanity. 210

BALTIMORE ORIOLE.

⅔ Life-size.

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Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

The Germans call this little bird rothStert (red tail), but, like so many popular names, this is a misnomer, as, strictly speaking, the redstart is never red, though its salmon-orange markings often border on to orange-flame.

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