98 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
week of April, sometimes not until the second week of May, 
and remain here until September, during a part of which month 
migrants of this species continue to pass through from the 
North on their way to the South. The warblers generally in- 
habit woodland of various kinds, but occasionally visit orchards 
and like places near the habitations of man, toward whom they 
exhibit no shyness, and also seek their food among the bushes 
of the “‘ scrub,” where they find the caterpillars, small insects, 
and insect-eggs, upon which they habitually feed. They differ 
from all our other warblers in their method of obtaining their 
food, which is to a certain extent entirely distinctive, though 
much like that of the true creepers (Certhiide), from whom 
they principally differ in being much less systematic in their 
researches, and in occasionally busying themselves upon the 
ground. They pass most of their time in scrambling about the 
trunks and larger limbs of trees, rarely perching, and also in 
running over old fences, such as contain rotten and moss-grown 
or lichen-covered wood. While thus engaged, they almost 
invariably keep their head pointed toward the direction in 
which they are moving. They rarely take other than short 
flights, when not traveling, but after remaining for a moment 
on the trunk of one tree, seldom longer, fly to a neighboring 
one. They are never strictly gregarious, but they possess 
such conjugal and parental affection that they are often seen in 
pairs (or family-groups). When the female is frightened from 
her nest on the ground, which is often partially concealed, she, 
usually feigns lameness, and flutters away with trailing wings | 
and tail, in the hope of distracting the intruder. (Dr. Coues 
speaks of these birds building in the holes of trees, which, 
says Dr. Brewer, ‘‘is probably an error, or, if ever known to 
occur, an entirely exceptional case.” I have found two of 
their nests near Boston thus situated, of which the first was 
in a pine-grove in the cavity of a tree rent by lightning, and 
about five feet from the ground, and the other on the top of a 
low birch stump, which stood in a grove of white oaks. These 
facts show how erratic birds frequently are in changing their 
habits, and how much corroborative testimony is needed to 
establish a single fact in Natural History.) 
