willows, cypresses, and other water-loving trees outnumber 

 the gaunt dead pines, we found the beautiful Prothonotary 

 Warbler abundant. On my first trip, on April 4th, I saw 

 but two Prothonotaries, but on April 13th they were present 

 in hundreds and on April 20th they had begun to nest, since 

 I saw a female with a bunch of pine-straw or fine grass- 

 blades in her bill. They were the most numerous as well as 

 the most beautiful of the warblers seen in the flooded woods 

 and thickets, though Parulas and Yellow-throated Warblers 

 were quite as abundant as they are at this season in ordin- 

 ary swampy woods; and on April 13th, in spite of the dark 

 rainy weather, the Prothonotaries were in full song, their 

 shrill, far-carrying notes ringing out from the tops of the 

 pines and cypresses as well as from low willow branches 

 within two or three feet of the water. A moment ago I said 

 that these gorgeous orange-yellow Prothonotaries were the 

 handsomest warblers observed, but I had forgotten two 

 Myrtle Warblers seen on April 20th. In anticipation of 

 their coming journey to the far north, the latter had assumed 

 their splendid spring livery of vivid yellow and jet black and 

 would hardly have been recognized as the same soberly - 

 dressed little birds so abundant in town and country through- 

 out the winter. The Prothonotaries, however, were the 

 warblers which interested us most. Myrtles, Parulas and 

 Yellow-throated Warblers may be as handsome and certainly 

 the Yellow-throated, at any rate, is a superior songster: 

 but these are common inhabitants of every woodland round- 

 about Charleston, while to find the Prothonotary in abund- 

 ance one mu^t penetrate the deep swamps. 



Astonishing and almost confusing in its volume and variety 

 is the bird-music to be heard in most portions of the flooded 

 lands and in the woods and thickets around their edges. In 

 the tall reeds and among the floating islands of aquatic < 

 plants, the weird laughing and pitiful whimpering of the 

 Coots and Gallinules, the shrill "Skeow" of Green Herons, 



39 



