Waiting for Warblers. 63 



In it we have nearly, if not quite, the typical form 

 of this group of birds, and a very merry fellow and 

 excellent company it proves to be. I always regret 

 to see the last of them pass by, and wonder why 

 they will not rest in a region that they find suffi- 

 cient unto their needs for nine months of the year. 

 Yellow-rumped warblers are in place wherever you 

 find them, and are as much at ease in the depths of 

 the forest as about our garden fences. I have often 

 seen them on the shade-trees of city streets, but 

 particularly tame country is not their preference, and 

 I have always observed them at their best among 

 the willows along the river-shore. It is a favorite 

 gathering-ground with them, and any estimate of 

 their numbers is out of the question. Except in the 

 case of certain strictly gregarious species, like the 

 red-winged blackbirds, I have never seen so many 

 birds of one kind together as of these lively little 

 warblers among the willows on the bank of the 

 river. Doubtless, like all small birds, they are always 

 hungry and always feeding, but I could never detect 

 them in the act of taking food. There was no fly- 

 catching chase or darting into mid-air for some 

 passing insect. They were always on the move, and 

 so ceaseless was their chirping — a single metallic 

 note — that the hum of their united voices resembled 

 the continuous vibration of a telegraph wire. At 

 times, though the river is wide, these birds would 

 leave the willows and spend some time upon the 

 opposite shore, where there were many evergreens, 

 but they always returned, and evidently preferred 



