THE COMING OF THE CATBIRD. 77s 



cesses of the Canadian forests. The wood thrush breeds with us, 

 and the melody of its notes adds a peculiar charm to our groves and 

 woodlands that would leave an unfilled blank in the choir if the bird 

 were a transient like the hermit or the veery. 



From the 1st to the 10th of May a succession of bird waves 

 comes from the south of such vast proportions as to the number of 

 individuals and variety of species that all the previous migratory 

 waves seem insignificant in comparison. It is the flood tide of the 

 migration, bringing with it the host of warblers, vireos, orioles, 

 tanagers, and thrushes that suddenly make our woods almost tropi- 

 cal in the variety of richly colored species and strange bird notes. It 

 would take a volume to describe the wood warblers, sylvan nymphs 

 of such bizarre color patterns and dainty forms that one is fain to 

 imagine himself in the heart of some wondrous forest of a far-away 

 land. Their curious dry notes, each different in its kind and ex- 

 pression, yet all of the same insectlike quality; their quick, active 

 motions, now twisting head downward around the branches, prying 

 into every nook and cranny in their eager search for food, or flut- 

 tering about the clusters of leaves, add to the strange effect. Their 

 names, too, are richly stimulative to the color sense — the black- 

 throated green, the black-throated blue, the chestnut-sided, the bay- 

 breasted, the black and yellow, the cerulean, the Blackburnian, the 

 blue-winged yellow, the golden-winged, the blue-yellow-backed or 

 parula warbler, and the Maryland yellow-throat are each suggestive 

 of a wealth of coloring. Others have names that carry us to southern 

 realms, like the myrtle and the palm warblers; and others again tell 

 of curious habits, as the worm-eating warbler, the hooded fly-catching 

 warbler, and the black and white creeping warbler that scrambles 

 about the tree trunks like a true creeper. There is nothing in all the 

 year quite like the May woods. Then, if never again, you can step 

 from your dooryard into an enchanted forest. The light yellowish 

 effects of new green in the feathery masses of the oak catkins and 

 the fresh, unfolding leafage of the forest trees are a rich feast to the 

 eyes. Against this wealth of green the dogwood spreads its snow- 

 white masses of bloom. In sunli^ spaces of greenness the scarlet flash 

 of a tanager, the rich blue coloring of the indigo bird, newly arrived 

 from its winter quarters in South America, and the glimpse of a 

 rose-breasted grosbeak among the high tree tops are strangely sug- 

 gestive of a tropical forest. The ear, too, is charmed with a multitude 

 of curious notes. The weird cries of the great-crested flycatcher 

 among the topmost branches, and the loud chant of the ovenbird 

 with its rising cadence coming from farther depths of the wood are 

 two of the most characteristic bird voices of the May woodlands. If 

 one would have the famous song of the mocking bird in this sylvan 



