LUCY'S WARBLER 133 



leaving them if the nest were toucht even so lightly." Some nests, 

 with incomplete sets, were deserted after they had been inspected; 

 but others were not. "They took good care not to sing in the nest 

 tree, preferring to confine their performances to trees some distance 

 away. The male would frequently meet me several rods from the 

 nest and flit from tree to tree singing at short intervals. Once I made 

 a complete circuit of the nest tree and he accompanied me the entire 

 distance. This was an exceptional case of course. While going from 

 tree to tree and singing, the bird usually tried to keep hidden as much 

 as possible and was rather successful in the effort." 



However nest-shy the bird may be when there are eggs in the nest 

 that she does not want discovered, the bird that I watched was not at 

 all shy about her nest, nor was she lacking in parental devotion. For, 

 although my camera stood within a few feet of the nest and I was 

 standing beside it in plain sight, she came repeatedly to feed her young. 

 I should say that these birds are more retiring than shy. 



W. L. Dawson (1923) writes : "Albeit an active creature and zealous 

 in song, the Lucy Warbler becomes almost invisible in its habitual 

 setting, and the difficulty of detection is heightened by the bird's in- 

 stinctive wariness. Again and again I have known a bird which had 

 seemed quite engrossed in song to fall silent at the stir of a footstep 

 a hundred yards away." 



Voice. — Mr. Dawson (1923) says : "The Lucy Warbler is a loud and 

 industrious singer, but the song has a curious generic quality very 

 difficult to describe. It is WarNer song, rather than the song of the 

 Lucy Warbler. It is, perhaps, most like that of the Pileolated War- 

 bler ( Wilsonia pileolata) in quality. After that, it reminds one of the 

 Yellow Warbler's song, having the same vivacious cadence, but not 

 being so sharply piercing. Again its breathless, haphazard quality 

 suggests one of the Buntings; and I once followed its tantalizing 

 seductions for half an hour under the delusion that I was on the track 

 of the coveted Beautiful Bunting {Passerina versicolor fulclira^P 



Dr. Grinnell (1914) says that the song "resembles the song of the 

 Sonora yellow warbler in length and frequency of utterance and some- 

 what in quality, but with a distinct hurried and lisping effect remind- 

 ing one of the song of the Lazuli bunting." Several others have noted 

 the resemblance to the song of the yellow warbler. Mrs. Florence 

 Merriam Bailey (1923) puts the song in syllables as follows: '"''whee- 

 tee, whee-tee, lohee-fee, whee-tee, whee-tee, whee-tee, whee-tee, whee- 

 tee^ whee-tee^ wheet., and its call was a faint chip^ 



Field marks. — There are no very striking marks on Lucy's warbler ; 

 it is clothed in quiet colors and in general appearance suggests a 

 warbling vireo. The chestnut crown patch of the male can be seen 

 under favorable conditions, but on the female it is seldom in evidence. 



981873—53 10 



