144 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



is the secret of the pines and one which is not 

 easy to discover. Usually it is well up in the 

 thickness of the needles, out on some branch, 

 hard indeed to see from the ground. Sometimes 

 however, it is in thick low evergreen growths, 

 hut even there it is not much easier to find. As 



Photo by II. K. Job 

 MALE BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER AT NEST 



a hoy this nest was my despair, and I was long 

 in finding one, in the crotch of a white pine, 

 next to the trunk, some twenty feet up. 



Though a retired forest dweller, the Black- 

 throated Green is rather a familiar little bird. 

 A nest which I found, in a recent year, gave me 

 wonderful insight into its pretty ways. It was 

 in an unusual situation, in a crotch by the main 

 trunk of one of five chestnut sprouts, growing 

 from the same root, only eleven feet from the 

 ground. As I looked into the then empty new 

 nest, I heard a faint chirp, and there were the 

 little couple right at my elbow. 



Many a time through the period of the rearing 

 of that family did I climb an adjacent sprout, 

 and, only two feet from the nest, watch the 

 feeding of the birdlets by the parents, and take 

 photographs of them, ^^'hen thev were nearly 

 grown, I held them in my hand, and the hand- 

 some male, perching on my finger tips, tucked 

 grubs into their widely stretched little mouths. 

 ( )ne day quite a party came with me to enjoy 

 this sight. A young lady, skeptical of results, 

 was induced to hold one of the little birds. Sud- 

 denly the brilliant male alighted on her thumb, 

 to feed the chick, and so startled her that she 

 nearly lost her balance. Then he hopped on her 

 hat as though to see whether he would make 

 becoming trimming for millinery ! But no ; these 

 feathered gems were made only for nature's 

 foliage, to add the final touch of charm and 

 grace to an already wonderful creation. 



Herbert K. Job. 



TOWNSEND'S WARBLER 

 Dendroica townsendi ( ./. A'. Tni^'iisciid) 



A (1, r, XiimlK-r M"i8 



General Description. — Lengtii, 5 inches. Fore parts, 

 Mack; upper parts, olive; uiirler parts, yellow anrl white. 

 P.ill, shorter than head, slender, taperin.a: Rradiially to 

 tlie tip ; wings, long and pointed ; tail, even or nearly 

 even. 



Color. — .^iiui.T M.M-E IN Spring and Summer: 

 Crown, hindneck. head. chin, throat, and upper chest, 

 uniform hlack ; a broad stripe over eye, broad cheek 

 stripe (curving upward on side of head, and joining 

 rear extremity of the eye stripe), a spot below eye, 

 lozvcr chest, and breast, clear Icmon-ycUow; abdomen, 

 flanks, and under tail-coverts, white ; sides and flanks, 

 heavily streaked with black, the forward streaks join- 

 ing the black throat-patch at rear; under tail-coverts 

 with a center streak of blackish ; back, shoulders, rump. 



and shorter upper tail-coverts, yellowish olive-green, 

 each feather with a central, wedge-shaped spot of black, 

 these markings concealed on rump ; longer upper tail- 

 coverts, black centrally, broadly margined with slate- 

 gray; wings and tail, blackish with light gray edgings, 

 and the middle a.nd greater wing-coverts, broadly tipped 

 with white, forming two conspicuous bars across wing; 

 inner webs of three side tail-feathers extensively white 

 at the end, this occupying the end half or more of the 

 outermost fea'her; bill, blackish; iris, brown; legs and 

 feet, dark horn-brownish. .^DULT M.^le in .\utumn- 

 .\ND Winter: Similar to the spring and summer plum- 

 age, but all the black areas much broken or obscured ; 

 that of crown and hindneck by broad olive-green mar- 

 gins to the feathers, the black forming central streaks, 



