SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 149 



lowest spice-bush, so urgent is the demand for food 

 during their long northern journeys. At night 

 they are up and away. Some varieties, as the blue 

 yellow-back, the chestnut-sided, and the Blackbur- 

 nian, during their brief stay, sing nearly as freely 

 as in their breeding-haunts. For two or three 

 years I have chanced to meet little companies of 

 the bay-breasted warbler, searching for food in an 

 oak wood on an elevated piece of ground. They 

 kept well up among the branches, were rather slow 

 in their movements, and evidently disposed to tarry 

 but a short time. 



The summer residents here, belonging to this 

 class of birds, are few. I have observed the black 

 and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler, 

 the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat- 

 catcher, breeding near Rock Creek. 



Of these the Kentucky warbler is by far the most 

 interesting, though quite rare. I meet with him in 

 low, damp places in the woods, usually on the steep 

 sides of some little run. I hear at intervals a clear, 

 strong, bell-like whistle or warble, and presently 

 catch a glimpse of the bird as he jumps up from the 

 ground to take an insect or worm from the under 

 side of a leaf. This is his characteristic movement. 

 He belongs to the class of ground warblers, and his 

 range is very low, indeed lower than that of anj 

 other species with which I am acquainted. He i' 

 on the ground nearly all the time, moving rapidlj 

 along, taking spiders and bugs, overturning leaves, 

 peeping under sticks and into crevices and every 



