BREWSTER'S WARBLER. 61 



clinging with their disproportionately long legs to the low herbage, like peeping 

 Hylas in the springtime clinging to the grasses and weeds above the surface 

 of the water. The little thread-like natal plumes still waving from the tips of 

 their crown feathers enhanced the oddity of their appearance. Up to this 

 time they were absolutely silent. 



By the twentieth of June the young birds had become more active and 

 volatile and had retired by short flights into the swamp to a distance of some 

 forty yards from the nest. Their plumage is now firmer and more compact, the 

 tail feathers about one quarter of an inch in length, the colors essentially the 

 same as described on the seventeenth. Their whereabouts is now often revealed 

 by their peculiar little call for food — a chirp resembling in no remote degree 

 the sound of black crickets. 



On the twenty-fourth of June the tails of the fledglings had reached a 

 length of about one inch and displayed conspicuously in flight the white portions 

 of the inner webs of the three outer pairs of feathers. Up to this time the young 

 birds lived exclusively among the Cinnamon Ferns and Raspberry vines, on 

 the ground or within from two to four feet of it. They were exceedingly elusive 

 creatures, making short flights from one dense cover to another. The whole 

 family life was essentially terrestrial. The parent birds, i. e. the male chrys- 

 optera and the female leucobronchialis, would now and then fly up into the trees 

 for food (which consisted largely of a light green larva one half or three quarters 

 of an inch long) but they would soon return to the young in the chief source of 

 the food' supply, the shrubbery below. Owing to the young birds' habit of 

 self-concealment it was impossible to determine with precision how many mem- 

 bers of this family escaped the perils of infancy, but I feel very sure that three, 

 and probably four, grew to maturity. 



Until now (June 24) the male leucobronchialis continued to sing, for the 

 most part from his chosen station in the Birch jungle. If by chance the brood 

 of young birds with their parents came into the edge of the jungle, or near it, 

 he was very likely to be found near them; but if they moved into the deeper 

 recesses of the swamp he never followed them, whereas the whole life of the male 

 chrysoptera now consisted in supplying the young mouths with food. By June 

 30 the male leucobronchialis was undergoing his moult and had lost most of his 

 tail feathers. On July 3 all the old feathers of the tail had been cast. On July 

 10 the growth of the new tail was well advanced, while the moult of the body 

 feathers was still going on. After this he was seldom or never seen and the 

 inference is inevitable that he passed the season without a mate. His pro- 



