A DAINTY WARBLER. 191 



good fortune to hear a myrtle warbler's song on 

 the twentieth of October. It was quite vigorous 

 and cheerful, but a little hoarse and wheezy, and 

 lacked the liquid quality of his spring song. 



Many were the chases the myrtle warbler led me 

 in the autumn, through the clover fields and across 

 the boggy marshes, before I had learned to know 

 him in his fall suit, which is so different from the 

 gorgeous apparel he wears in the spring. Why he 

 changes his toilet I do not know, unless it is to 

 confuse us bird students, and that would not be 

 very kind. Here he is on this October day with a 

 dress of umber-brown, paler below, while his breast 

 and sides are obscurely streaked with dusk. And 

 then here are the young birds, which are dressed 

 in still another suit, thickly streaked both above 

 and below with dusk and gray, and having no 

 yelloAv except on the rump. 



This bird is moi-e hardy than most of his kins- 

 men of the same family, for he often remains here 

 until the last of October and the first of November, 

 and sometimes does not leave for his winter home 

 in the South until snow falls, whioli is longr- after 



o 



all other warblers have gone ; and then in the 

 spring he is frequently back again by the fourth of 

 Maich. He has other quaint ways, for while he 



