The Birds' Calendar 



which is usually the forerunner of the family. 

 It is about six inches long : olive above, throat 

 and breast bright yellow, passing into white 

 beneath, and two white wing-bars — chiefly a 

 denizen of pine woods ; and whoever has found 

 it in its summer resorts will thereafter always 

 associate its simple, sweet, and drowsy song with 

 the smell of pines in a sultry day. It often 

 r litis along the branches, an unusual occur- 

 rence for any bird, and especially for warblers, 

 whose nervous temperament commonly puts 

 them on the wing, as the most congenial 

 method of locomotion. Like the nuthatch the 

 pine-creeper often clings to the tree-trunk. It 

 is probably only seen as a migrant in this re- 

 gion, which is true of about half of the war- 

 blers, their summer home being in northern 

 New England and beyond. 



The reader of any ornithological literature 

 that is not technically scientific, will observe 

 the alternating occurrence of 'Mie" and ''it," 

 ''who" and "which," in speaking of a bird. 

 This results from the writer's effort to satisfy 

 the demands of sentiment on the one side, and 

 of grammar on the other. For it is very dis- 

 tasteful to any bird-lover to degrade his friends 

 to the impersonality of the neuter gender, and 



no 



