BRILLIANTS IN PLUMES. 



We sometimes see pictures of birds which cause 

 us to wonder whether there really are such lav- 

 ishly colored creatures in the world of feathers, 

 especially in the neighborhood in which we live, 

 or whether they are only freaks of the artist's 

 fancy. The pictures may be purely imaginative, 

 as far as the figures of the birds and the arrange- 

 ment of the colors are concerned ; but it would 

 puzzle any artist to conceive a bird more brilliantly 

 and diversely hued than some of the warblers. It 

 is not straining a metaphor to say that they are 

 indeed gems in feathers ; yet their colors are so 

 rich and so exquisitely arranged that they can by 

 no means be called tawdry. One never thinks of 

 their being overdressed. 



The warblers comprise a large family of small 

 birds, some of them quite tiny, and all of them ex- 

 ceedingly supple in movement. Many of them 

 can be identified only by the most careful and 

 patient effort, such a genius have they for eluding 



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