The Warblers 



By Sarah V. Prueser 



Would you know these nervous little creatures that people our tree tops, 

 then take your field glass and go into the moist woods and thickets. Do not 

 expect to hear warbling songs, for notwithstanding the name warbler, the warblers 

 do not warble. The songs of the most of them are weak, wiry, high-pitched 

 sounds, rapidly repeated. 



There are three score and ten warblers in the United States, but less than 

 half that number visit the central states. Only a few of these are summer resi- 

 dents, the major part of them going north to breed and returning south in August 

 and September, when the woods abound with their lisping notes. The last half 

 of May is probably the best time to observe the warblers. The transient visitors, 

 often arriving before the trees are in full foliage, tarry long enough to make 

 their identity possible. The warblers are among our smallest birds, only a few 

 species measuring more than six inches in length. 



With but few exceptions the warblers inhabit the thick wood, living chiefly 

 in the upper branches of the trees and feeding on the myriads of small insects 

 infesting tree life. Few people learn to know the warblers as they have neither 

 the time nor the inclination to remain in the woods long enough to make sure of 

 their identity. However, there are a few species that every man and child may 

 know. Of these the yellow warbler is the commonest and the best known in most 

 localities, for he will come to your gardens and orchards, and to your vines and 

 shrubbery. Don't call him a wild canary, though he does wear a canary-colored 

 suit — he is the summer yellow bird or yellow warbler. If you are a careful 

 observer you'll see the olive green in the black and brown streaks on the breast 

 of what is otherwise a yellow bird. The male and female are much alike, both 

 wearing yellow. They flit about like ripened leaves driven about by an unruly 

 wind. 



Last year the yellow warblers were here, latitude 41 degrees north, by May 

 11th and in a week many of them had their nests built. Near the edge of town, 

 in trees and shrubbery along a ravine, I found four of their nests, all of which 

 were hung less than six feet from the ground. A blackberry vine, a willow 

 tree, an elm shrub, and a small horse chestnut bush, each held a flaxen pouch. 

 These silvery-gray pouches were artistically woven from fme plant fiber and lined 

 with down and fine hair. The nests were beautiful, as beautiful as the birds 

 themselves. No sooner had the nests been made, when that imposter, the cowbird, 

 began her intrusions. In each nest, among the bluish white eggs mottled with 

 brown, a cowbird had deposited her egg, which was twice the size of the warbler's 

 ^SS- I was interested to know what would happen. In one of the nests, the cow- 

 bird's egg was left undisturbed, in another the warbler cleverly built another story 

 over the bottom of the nest, thus concealing and burying it. The yellow warbler 



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