often builds a nest of several stories in order that she may get rid of the unwel- 

 come eggs laid in her nest. 



The nest in the elm shrub fared the worst, for in this nest the cowbird had 

 deposited two eggs among the four warbler's eggs, making six eggs to be brooded 

 over. Two weeks later my patient waiting was rewarded by seeing a nest filled 

 with four young warblers and two big cowbirds. What a family for the little 

 parents to feed ! On the morning of the fourth day after hatching, I visited the 

 nest and found that two of the warblers were missing. Who was responsible 

 for their tragic fate? While I was thinking of some possible cause of their 

 disappearance, my eyes were attracted to some flies at work on something near 

 my feet. There lay the warblers — dead. There was but one solution to this 

 tragedy ; the little birds, having starved to death, were carried from the nest and 

 dropped to the earth. The cowbirds, their flaming red mouths wide open, had 

 taken the food which rightly belonged to the young warblers. 



Some day in May, you may see a pair of black and white-streaked birds 

 creeping around the tree trunks very much like the nuthatches do. They are 

 not nuthatches but black and white warblers, helping themselves to a meal of 

 insect food. Listen to the song — a weak, wiry, "zee, zee, zee," he calls as he 

 plants himself against the trunk of another tree. The black and white warbler 

 builds her nests on the ground, in which she lays four or five small white eggs, 

 speckled with cinnamon brown on the larger end. This warbler is easily identified ; 

 a black and white streaked back, a black throat, a light breast heavily streaked 

 with black are the marks by which you may know him. Then, too, he is smaller 

 than the woodpeckers and brown creepers. 



You must not miss seeing our summer resident warbler — the American red- 

 start, brilliant and flaming. If you chance upon a pair of birds flitting from tree 

 to tree, catching insects on the wing, dressed in black and salmon, you may be 

 quite sure that they are redstarts. The head, back, the upper wing and middle 

 tail feathers of the male are black basal, half of wing feathers, sides of breast 

 and flanks, rich salmon. The female is less gorgeous in her attire, the salmon 

 of the male being replaced by a dull yellow, and the back is somewhat grayish. 

 I like the redstart's song, perhaps because it is so genuinely rich and jolly. Moist 

 woods, May flowers, grass grown brooks, these are the proper stage setting for 

 the redstarts, which is very much of a tropical bird. The nest usually placed in 

 a small tree or sapling, six to twenty feet from the ground, is built of strips of 

 bark, rootlets and lined with fine tendrils and down. Sometimes the redstart is 

 taken for the Blackburnian warbler. The latter has orange not salmon in his 

 plumage. The orange in the center of the black crown, and the conspicuous 

 white feathers in the tail, are characteristic markings that help you to know the 

 Blackburnian from his cousin the redstart. 



If you should happen upon a bird in your orchard, wearing a black mask 

 and a yellow vest, call him the Maryland yellowthroat. His home is in the thickets, 



86 



