80 NEWS FROM THE BIRDS. 



the mountain ravines I encountered these 

 pert, half-shy, half-familiar little trillers. Up 

 from the densely matted thickets of the bog- 

 lands their wavering ditties came like silvery 

 threads of sound. In northern Alabama and 

 southern Tennessee they were just as mu- 

 sical, and when I reached my home in Ohio 

 there was no dearth of Maryland yellowthroats. 

 Think of the range of these tiny travelers ! 



One day I took a long stroll along the 

 border of the lake. In a dense, bushy place 

 a lively trill reached my ear, the musician 

 turning out to be that little nugget of gold, 

 the summer warbler. His entire plumage is 

 yellow, save that his breast and sides are faintly 

 streaked with reddish brown. He is so dainty 

 a birdlet that you are tempted to call him a 

 sylph. While I watched one of these war- 

 blers which w^as flitting about in a small tree, 

 he espied a worm clinging to the under side of 

 a leaf. The problem with him seemed to be, 

 how to secure that insect. There were no 

 twigs beneath on which he could stand. Of 

 course, he might have clung back downward 

 to the leaf, as warblers often do; but then I 

 was standing directly below him, and he could 

 not bring himself to turn his back upon so 

 dangerous a being even for a moment, for in 



