CONNECTICUT WARBLER 519 



difficult to make a good specimen of one. Huff (1929), however, 

 writes : 



lu his summer home the Connecticut Warbler is a shy and elusive bird, so 

 secretive in his manner that he would rarely be seen here, even by those looking 

 for him, were it not for his betraying song. * * * 



When driven from his song perch by too close approach of his observer he 

 escapes, often unseen, from the opposite side of the tree, and the first indication 

 of his departure may be his jubilant, triumphant song gushing from a tree 

 several yards away. If one is fortunate enough to see him enter another tree 

 nearby, one is impressed with the remarkable facility with which he creeps, half 

 hidden, through the tree until he reaches a secure position, separated from his 

 observer by a limb or a small mass of foliage. More than once as he scampered 

 along a branch, his body low, his head extended, seeking a suitable hiding place, 

 I have seen him pause an inch beyond the coveted spot. With head and 

 shoulders visible he takes a hasty peep at his observer, then suddenly retreats a 

 step or two and adjusts his position until he is wholly obscured. * * * 



If one remain perfectly still or in hiding for a while, the singer forgets one's 

 presence and sooner or later will move out of his hiding place, walking along on 

 a limb or occasionally hopping to a nearby branch, taking some tiny insect or 

 other tidbit that meets his fancy, all the while repeating his song several times 

 a minute. His relative inactivity, his rather deliberate movements, now afford 

 an excellent opportunity for observation. * * * 



Whether he had forgotten my presence or merely regarded me now as a part 

 of the landscape, I do not know, but he no longer sought to conceal himself. He 

 often sat motionless for several minutes, except for the shaking and quivering 

 of his body which always accompanied his singing, 



Mr. Harlow tells me that a female that he watched returned to her 

 nest three times within an hour ; she always walked back to the nest. 



Voice. — In his first account of the nesting of the Connecticut w\ar- 

 bler, Seton (1884) says of its song : "It may be suggested by the sylla- 

 bles, heecher-heecher-heecher-heecher-'beecher-heecher. It is like the 

 song of the Golden-crowned Thrush, but differs in being in the same 

 pitch throughout, instead of beginning in a whisper and increasing 

 the emphasis and strength with each pair of notes to the last." Later 

 (1891) , he recorded another type of song which "nearly resembled the 

 syllables ''Fim-chapple fru-cha'pple fru-chapfle luhoit^^ and is uttered 

 in a loud, ringing voice, quite unlike the weak, hurried lisping of the 

 Wood Warblers, which are nesting abundantly in the adjoining dry 

 spruce woods." Mr. Harlow (MS.) refers to its song as heard on the 

 breeding grounds as "very distinctive, whip-'pity^ whip-pity^ whip, 

 clear, ringing, deliberate and resonant, with a definite accent on the 

 first syllable." Various other renderings of the song have been given 

 in syllables, all of which give similar impressions of it, and some of 

 which suggest the song of the Maryland yellowthroat as well as that 

 of the ovenbird. The carrying power of the song is shown by the fact 

 that Mr. Trautman (1940) "heard a male singing more than 300 yards 



