PROTHONOTARY WARBLER 25 



The crown and hind neck in both sexes, both old and young, are 

 washed with dusky or olive in the fall. S^Dring plumages are pro- 

 duced by very slight wear without molt. There is one complete, an- 

 nual molt in late summer. 



Food. — Very little seems to have been recorded on the food of the 

 prothonotary warbler. It is evidently highly insectivorous, obtain- 

 ing most of its food from the trunks and branches of trees and shrubs 

 and from fallen logs. Brewster (1878) says: "This Warbler usually 

 seeks its food Ioav down among thickets, moss-grown logs, or floating 

 debris, and always about water. Sometimes it ascends tree-trunks 

 for a little way like the Black-and-White Creeper, winding about with 

 the same peculiar motion." 



Dr. Roberts (1936) lists "ants, and other insects and their larvae," 

 as its food. Some of the food of the young is mentioned above, most 

 of which is doubtless included in the food of the adults. Spiders, 

 beetles, mayflies, and other insects should be included, as well as many 

 caterpillars and the larvae of water insects. Audubon (1841) says: 

 "It often perches upon the rank grasses and water plants, in quest 

 of minute molluscous animals which creep upon them, and which, 

 together with small land snails, I have found in its stomach." 



Behavior. — Brewster (1878a) observes: 



When seen among the upper branches, where it often goes to plume its feathers 

 and sing in the warm sunshine, it almost invariably sits nearly motionless. Its 

 flight is much like that of the Water-Thrush (either species), and is remarkably 

 swift, firm, and decided. When crossing a broad stream it is slightly undulating, 

 though always direct. * * * 



In general activity and restlessness few birds equal the species under con- 

 sideration. Not a nook or corner of his domain but is repeatedly visited through 

 the day. Now he sings a few times from the top of some tall willow that leans 

 out over the stream, sitting motionless among the yellowish foliage, fully aware, 

 perhaps, of the protection afforded by its harmonizing tints. The next moment 

 he descends to the cool shades beneath, where dark, coffee-colored water, the 

 overflow of the pond or river, stretches back among the trees. Here he loves 

 to hop about on floating drift-wood, wet by the lapping of pulsating wavelets ; now 

 following up some long, inclining, half-submerged log, i>eeping into every 

 crevice and occasionally dragging forth from its concealment a spider or small 

 beetle, turning alternately his bright yellow breast and olive back towards the 

 light ; now jetting his beautiful tail or quivering his wings tremulously, he darts 

 off into some thicket in response to a call from his mate ; or, flying to a neighbor- 

 ing tree-trunk, clings for a moment against the mossy bole to pipe his little 

 strain or look up the exact whereabouts of some suspected insect prize. 



Voice. — The same gifted writer and careful observer (Brewster, 

 1878) gives the following good account of the distinctive song of this 

 warbler : 



The usual song of the Prothonotai-y Warbler sounds at a distance like the 

 call of the Solitary Sandpiper, with a syllable or two added, — a simple peet, tweet, 

 tweet, tweet, given on the same key throughout. Often when the notes came 



