l6o BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER 



At Branchport, N. Y., Verdi Burtch says the Black-throated 

 Green "is found during the nesting season in all of our larger gullies. 

 I have found twenty or more nests during the past three seasons, and 

 all have been in hemlocks. The birds are close sitters and will not 

 leave the nest until one gets almost close enough to touch them. 

 When flushed from the nest they usually drop nearly to the ground, 

 then sail to a nearby bush, gradually coming back near one. Usually 

 they are quiet but sometimes they chip a little." {Burtch, MS.) 



Song. — "The familiar two main songs of this common Warbler 

 are subject to surprising individual — or rather, idiosyncratic, — varia- 

 tion. Most of the individuals in a region sing nearly alike, — showing, 

 indeed, an unusual fixitude of song-form, but about one in forty does 

 queer tricks with his voice. Among the commonest of these tricks 

 is the introduction into all or part of the song of a pronounced quaver 

 or tremulo. But the phrasing as well as the tone-quality is highly 

 subject to these occasional vagaries. The song is sometimes disguised 

 almost past recognition. Although the Black-throated Green is pre- 

 eminently a full-voiced Warbler, its voice has a certain quality of husk- 

 iness, — like the Black-throated Blue's, but much less obtrusively notice- 

 able, and rather enhancing than marring the quiet sweetness of the 

 song. One of the two main utterances is remarkable for its deliberate 

 and highly-modulated enunciation ; the other not. The deliberate song, 

 of five (sometimes six or eight) notes, is the one usually described in 

 books ; but here about Monadnock the other is at least as often uttered, 

 and in mid-summer is the commoner of the two. The differences 

 between them are suggested, though feebly, by the two phrases : Sweer 

 swecrrr, swi-ni swee (the first and last accented notes the highest- 

 pitched), and Wi-wi-wi-wi-wi-wi-wi, wer-weee (last note highest- 

 pitched as well as most emphatic). The first phrase represents, of 

 course, the more highly modulated song. Two at least of this War- 

 bler's call-notes are fairly characteristic, a plainly Dendroicine but 

 rather loud and full-toned tsip and a reduplicated smaller chip, often 

 running into 'chippering', like that of many young but few other adult 

 Warblers." {Thayer, MS.) 



Miss Paddock presents the following renderings: 



