G4 DEXDRCECA DISCOLOR, PRAIRIE WARBLER. 



"uialie,"' in spite of tbe college dons, in onr early home at Washington, 

 Dr. Prentiss and I knew just where to look for it, and it did not take 

 long to get a lew of the delicate birds, in their season. We were gen- 

 erally back in time for recitation, and even if that performance went 

 lame in consequence, it did not seem much matter, comparatively. The 

 inflection of the Prairie Warbler's notes was a mnch more agreeable 

 theme tlian that of a Greek verb, and I am still uncertain whether it 

 was not quite as profitable. There was a little glade just by the college, 

 bordering Rock Creek, closed in by high woods — a sloping, sandy field, 

 run waste with scattered cedars — where we could be sure of finding the 

 Warblers any day, from the 2Uth of April, for two or three weeks. Ten 

 to one we would not see the little creatures at first ; but presently, from 

 the very nearest juniper, would come the well-known sounds. A curi- 

 ous song, if song it can be called — as much like a mouse complaining of 

 the tooth ache as anything else I can liken it to — it is simply indescriba- 

 ble. Then perhaps the quaint performer would dart out into the air, 

 turn a somersault after a passing midge, get right side ui), and into the 

 shrubbery again in an instant; or if we kept still, with wide-open eyes, 

 we would see him perched on a spray, settling firmly on his legs, with 

 his beak straight up in the air, the throat swelling, and hear the curious 

 music again. After that would come the inevitable tragedy — for tragedy 

 it in, and I cannot, after picking up warm bloody little birds for years, 

 make anything else out of it. or learn to look on it with indifference. 



1 did not see this bird in Kansas, wheie my friend Allen found it, nor, 

 of course, further westward ; but a few years afterward, when the ec- 

 centric course of military migration stranded me on a sandbar on the 

 ll^orth Carolina coast, there were the Prairie Warblers as i>lenty, as 

 unmusical and interesting, as ever. Excepting the ubiquitous Yellow- 

 rumps, they were the only Warblers that sliowed bad taste enough to 

 come voluntarily about Fort jMacon in any considerable numbers. But 

 they appear to fancy rather barren, sandy places, very likely because 

 they hav'e grown fond of certain kinds of Inigs, and if so, they must 

 have been contented there. Arriving the latter [)ai t of April, they be- 

 came very numerous in May, all through the juniper patches, clum])s of 

 live-oak, and scrubby "yujjou" tracts, singing at their best and catching 

 insects in the air. 1 consider them very expert fly-catchers, quite equal 

 in this respect to most of their tribe; and my experience has been to 

 show that they are not so terrestrial as Audul)on intimates. He says 

 that "while on the ground, where it remains a good deal, it searches 

 among the leaves slowly and carefully;" but I never saw anything of 

 the kind. But as he says, the bird's ordinary flight is weak and vacil- 

 lating, not often protracted further than from one bush to another; it 

 appears to find coming down easier than going up was. I also agree 

 with him that it goes singly — never in troops; but I have certainly seen 

 many more at once than tlie three or four lie allows to a thirty acre lot. 



As above intiumted, the Prairie Warbler breeds along the Atlantic 

 coast, but only a few about Washington, where I never <liscovered the 

 nest; nor was I more fortunate in either of the Carolinas. Wilson, 

 Nuttall, and Audubon, who described the nidification and the eggs as 

 they believed them to be, give such entirely ditterent accounts, that, in 

 the uncertainty, the following notice, which 1 owe to my kind friend. Dr. 

 Brewer, may be the more acceptable. Dr. Brewer corroborates Nuttall's 

 account, in the interesting article intended for his forthcoming work: 



"Both Wilson and Audubon were evidently at fault in their descrip- 

 tions of the nest and eggs. These do not correspond with more recent 

 and positive observations. Its nest is never pensile. Mr. Nuttall's de- 



