422 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



birds also eat deer [flies] and horse flies, grasshoppers, crickets, white 

 and dusky millers, with relish. , . . The birds also eat or drink the 

 white pitchlike fluid which exudes from the branches of the pine." 



My own observations indicate that the Kirtland's food consists 

 of several kinds of Lepidoptera (adults and larvae), tabanid flies, 

 winged ant-lions, small Orthoptera, and other insects. The young 

 are first fed principally on little green and little reddish caterpillars, 

 but after a few days, moths, adult ant-lions, and other winged insects 

 are brought to them. Feces are usually eaten (by both parents) in 

 the first days, later carried away. 



Food is apparently very easy to get in the Michigan jack-pine 

 country. In fact, we can probably say that, within the breeding area 

 of this warbler, food supply is never a critical factor. Parents feed- 

 ing young will often do much of their hunting within 30 or 40 feet 

 of the nest. It is even common to see a warbler leave the nest after 

 feeding, pick up some insects within a yard or two of the nest, and 

 turn back immediately to feed the young again. 



Kirtland's warblers have apparently never been seen drinking water, 

 and they refuse water offered to them experimentally near the nest. 

 However, as Leopold noted, they sometimes take drops of liquid pitch 

 from the surface of jack-pines, and I have seen one eagerly pick up 

 and eat drops of black automobile lubricant it found on a twig near 

 its nest. 



Behavior. — C. J. Maynard (1896) reported that Kirtland's warbler 

 is a shy bird while in its winter range in the Bahamas, but all observers 

 comment on its tameness in the Michigan nesting area. However, 

 there is great individual variation. Some nesting pairs are much 

 tamer than others, and it is common to find one member of a pair defi- 

 nitely tamer than its mate. Leopold (1924) found the males of two 

 pairs much tamer than the females, and one male actually ate from his 

 hand. L. H. Walkinshaw found a very tame female at a nest, with 

 eggs, near Ked Oak on June 21, 1932. As he lay on the ground near 

 the nest, the bird hopped around on him and even allowed herself 

 to be caught in his hand and banded. Her mate would not come near. 

 Southeast of Mio in June 1944, 1 had similar experience with a female 

 warbler. The bird frequently alighted on me as I inspected the nest, 

 and if I found her on the nest when I wanted to examine the young, 

 I usually had to push her off with my finger. She not only hopped 

 about on the nesting-area map, which I once laid on the ground 

 near by, but she even hopped into my open box of bird bands, picked 

 up a string of bright yellow celluloid bands and flew up into a tree 

 with them. 



A very noticeable characteristic of Kirtland's warbler is its habit of 

 "wagging" its tail (actually, the tail is jerked downward and then-— 



