The Oven Bird {Scnunts aurocapUlus) 

 By Thomas Nuttall 



Length, a little over 6 inches. Above mostly olive green ; below white, 

 breast and sides streaked with black. 



Range : Breeds from southern Mackenzie, Ontario, southern Labrador and 

 Newfoundland south to Wyoming, Kansas, southern Missouri, Ohio \"alley 

 and Virginia ; also in mountains of Georgia and South Carolina ; winters in 

 southern Florida, southern Louisiana, Bahamas, West Indies and southern 

 Mexico to Colombia. 



The oven-bird is one of our best known birds and one the woodland stroller 

 is sure to get acquainted with, whether he will or no, so common is it and so 

 generally distributed. In moments of ecstacy it has a flight song which has been 

 highly extolled, but this is only for the initiated, its insistent repetition of 

 "teacher, teacher, teacher," as Burroughs happily phases it, is all the bird vouch- 

 safes for the ears of ordinary mortals. Its curious domed-over grass nest is 

 placed on the ground and is not hard to find. The food of the oven-bird does 

 not differ greatly from that of other warblers, notwithstanding the fact that the 

 bird is strictly terrestrial in habits. It consists almost exclusively of insects, 

 including ants, beetles, moths, span worms and other caterpillars, with a few 

 spiders, millepods and weevils. 



During the summer this rather common bird is found throughout the forests 

 of the United States and Canada, even as far west as Oregon. It arrives in 

 the middle and northern States about the middle or close of May, and departs 

 for tropical America, Mexico, and the larger ^^'est India Islands early in Sep- 

 tember. 



The Oven-bird, or Golden-crowned Thrush, is shy and retiring, and is never 

 seen out of the shade of the woods ; it sits and runs along the ground often, 

 like the lark ; it also frequents the branches of trees and sometimes moves its 

 tail in the manner of the Wag-tails. It has few pretensions to song, and, while 

 perched in the deep and shady part of the forest, it utters at intervals a simple 

 long reiterated note of 'tsh'e tshe tshe tshe, rising from low to high and shrill, 

 so as to give but little idea of the distance or place from whence the sound 

 proceeds, and often appearing from the loudness of the cadence to be much 

 nearer than it really is. As soon as discovered, like the Wood-thrush, it darts 

 at once timidly into the depths of its sylvan retreat. 



During the period of incubation, the deliberate lay of the male, from some 

 horizontal branch of a forest tree, where it often sits, is a 'tshe te tshe te tshe 

 te tshce, gradually rising and growing louder. Toward dusk in the evening, 

 however, it now and then utters a .sudden burst of notes with a short agreeable 

 warble, which terminates commonly in the usual 'tshe te tshe. 



Its curious oven-shaped nest is known to all sportsmen who traverse the 

 solitary wilds which it inhabits. This ingenious fabric is sunk a little into 

 the ground, and is generally situated on some dry and mossy bank contiguous 



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