WarWer WESTERN BIRDS 



up its ci-ci-ci call, or wee-chee, chee, chee, unmindful 

 of human presence. 



On the western coast they are not quite so often seen 

 about gardens, although one pair always nests in my 

 neighborhood, often bringing their fluffy balls of babies 

 to my garden to feed. Such tiny midgets are they, and 

 so well do they blend with the trees where they rest, that 

 I greatly fear that the parents would never find them 

 did they not keep up an incessant chee call. In their 

 persistent calling they resemble the parents, the male 

 singing his monotonous song all summer long with 

 scarcely a moment's intermission. The song most com- 

 monly given by the western bird is a sharp ci-ci-ci-ci, 

 but a song similar to that of the eastern species is also 

 given. Wee-chee, chee, chee, cher-wee. 



The nest is a dainty, but loosely constructed, affair 

 which the female builds in a remarkably short time, 

 using grasses, plant fibers and down, sometimes bound 

 together with webs, and frequently placed in an upright 

 crotch, or against one stem, to which it is bound. 



Since its food consists mostly of insects and spiders, 

 and since it nests in orchards where these pests abound, 

 it is considered one of our most useful species. 



Prof. Beal tells of a nest of these Warblers situated 

 in a prune orchard that was watched for six hours, dis- 

 tributed over three days, when it contained two week- 

 old young. In six hours one hundred and eighty-one 

 feedings were observed, an average of thirty and one- 

 sixth per hour. As there were only two young, pre- 

 sumedly each nestling was fed fifteen times each hour, 

 or in a day of fourteen hours, two hundred and ten times. 

 Probably, too, there was more than one insect fed each 

 time, thus increasing these birds' usefulness. 



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