176 BIRDS OF FIELD, FOREST AND PARK 



with feathers or hair. The five eggs were a 

 roseate white, spotted and blotched with brown. 



Black and White Warbler. This Warbler 

 could scarcely have borne another name, for 

 black and white are his colors, with no trace of 

 another tint. His dress is really very neat, the 

 coal black being streaked and dashed with pure 

 white. The female is washed with brownish on 

 the sides and there is less black on the under 

 parts; otherwise the colors of her plumage are 

 the same. If we add the word creeping to the 

 name of this bird, its identity is complete, for 

 it is almost as much a creeper as the Nut- 

 hatch or Brown Creeper. Their arrival is simul- 

 taneous with the Yellow Palm, and they are 

 found wherever there are trees. About the 

 shade trees and parks of the city, by the road- 

 side, on the lawn, and in the forest and orchard, 

 they busily search for their daily supply of bugs, 

 gnats, spiders, grubs and eggs of various insects. 

 They, too, are restless, but are more easily 

 observed than other Warblers, which feed ex- 

 clusively on insects caught on the wing, for 

 they move more sedately and doggedly. As 

 they work I often hear a fine, wiry call note, 

 '''dze, dze, dze,^"" and at times the bird stops to 

 sing a shrill ''wee-see, wee-see, wee-see, wee-see,'''* 

 not particularly musical. 



These Warblers are common summer resi- 

 dents in the New England States, usually nest- 

 ing in second-growth, deciduous woods. The 

 nest of bark and grass is lined with hair and 

 tiny rootlets, and always placed on the ground 

 by the side of a stump or log, under a bush, or 



