THE BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 



twitterings 

 semblance. 



BOUT sixty species of Warb- 

 lers are known to ornitholo- 

 gists, no one of which can 

 be considered a great 

 singer, bnt their several 

 have a small family re- 

 The Bay-breasted, which 

 is also popularly called Autumnal 

 Warbler, breeds from northern New 

 England and northern Michigan north- 

 ward, its nest being found in low, 

 swampy woods, where there is a 

 mixture of evergreens, oak, birch, elm 

 and other trees. It is compact, cup- 

 shaped, and usually placed in coniferous 

 trees from five to fifteen or even twenty 

 feet above the ground. Fine shreds 

 of bark, small twigs, fibrous roots, and 

 pine hair are used in its construction. 

 Four eggs are laid, which are white, 

 with a bluish tinge, finely speckled on 

 or round the larger end with reddish- 

 brown. 



Comparatively little is known of the 

 habits of this species. It passes in 

 spring and fall, on its way to the 

 north, being sometimes abundant at 

 both seasons, but does not tarry long. 

 In general habits, at all times, it 

 closely resembles other species of the 

 genus. In Oxford County, Maine, 

 says Mr. Maynard, these birds are 

 found in all the wooded sections of 

 that region, where they frequent the 



tops of tall trees. The species seems 

 to be confined during the building 

 season to the region just north of the 

 White Mountains range. 



Ridgway says: "Tanagers are splen- 

 did ; Humming-birds are refulgent ; 

 other kinds are brilliant, gaudy or 

 magnificent, but Warblers alone are 

 pretty in the proper and full sense of 

 that term. When the apple trees 

 bloom, the Warblers revel among the 

 flowers, vicing in activity and in num- 

 ber with the bees; now probing the 

 recesses of a blossom for an insect 

 which has effected lodgment there, 

 then darting to another, where, poised 

 daintily upon a slender twig, or sus- 

 pended from it, he explores hastily but 

 carefully for another morsel. Every 

 movement is the personification of 

 nervous activity, as if the time for 

 their journey was short ; and, indeed, 

 such appears to be the case, for two 

 or three days at most suffice some 

 species in a single locality ; a day 

 spent in gleaning through the woods 

 and orchards of one neighborhood, 

 with occasional brief siestas among the 

 leafy bowers, then the following night 

 in continuous flight toward its northern 

 destination, is probably the history of 

 every individual of the moving 

 throng." 



" Have yovi walked beneath the blossoms in the spring? 

 In the spring? 

 Beneath the apple blossoms in the spring? 

 When the pink cascades are falling, 

 And the silver brooklets bawling, 

 And the Warbler bird soft calling, 

 In the spring?" 



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