BIRDS OF THE WOODLANDS 



Warblers 



Under this heading may be roughly grouped a 

 large number of most interesting British birds, it 

 is chiefly to the warblers that we owe the music 

 which vibrates through the spring w^oodlands and 

 renders England, in this respect, favoured beyond 

 all other lands. American naturalists have claimed 

 that their native birds, as a whole, rival those of 

 Great Britain in power and variety of song. Mr. 

 John Burroughs, for example, draws an interesting 

 comparison between the songsters of the two 

 countries. He claims that America possesses thirty- 

 seven true singing birds as against twenty-three 

 which he grants to the Old Country. But even he 

 admits that although in New England the bird- 

 voices that join in the spring chorus are more 

 numerous, they are, none the less, more fitful and 

 intermittent, more confined to certain hours of the 

 day, and less loud and vivacious. The American 

 finches, including the Song-sparrows, Indigo Bird, 

 Purple Finch, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted 

 Grosbeak and Cardinal Bird, he believes to be 

 superior to ours, and he lays special stress upon 

 the music of the Wood and Hermit Thrushes, but 

 he at once agrees that our Larks and Warblers are 

 unmatched in the world. 



57 



