198 THE TOLMIE WARBLER. 
It matters not whether it be a hillside in King County, a lonesome spring draw 
in the hills of Klickitat, or the borders of a swamp in Okanogan, if only there 
be cover and plenty of it. No more persistent skulker haunts the shrubbery 
than this wary, suspicious, active, and very competent Wood Warbler. Yet 
even he, when he thinks no one is looking, emerges from his shrubbery depths, 
selects a topmost twig and breaks out in song,—a song which is neither 
difdent nor uncertain. Sheep sheep sheep shear shear sheep, he announces 
in a brisk, business-like tone, totally devoid of musical quality. And when you 
have heard him once, or, say, a hundred times, you have learned all that may be 
known of the Tolmie Warbler—out of cover. Those who know the Dickcissel 
of the middle West will at once be struck with the close similarity of its song, 
altho it must be admitted that the Warbler’s is lighter in quality and less 
wooden. Practically, the only variety is in the number of syllables and in the 
number and distribution of the r’s; thus, Sheep, sheep, shear, shear, sheep; 
Sheep, sheep, shear, shear, sheep, sheep; and, a shade more emphatic, Jick, 
jick, jick, jick, shear, sheep. 
For all we see so little of the Tolmie Warbler, the converse is by no 
means true. That is to say, the bird does see a great deal of us if we frequent 
the thickets. Whenever there is anything doing in his vicinity, the Warbler 
promptly and silently threads the intervening mazes, takes observations of the 
disturber from every angle, and retires with, at most, a disapproving chuck. 
In the fall of the year discipline is somewhat relaxed, and a little judicious 
screeping in the shrubbery will call up platoons of these inquisitive Warblers. 
Owing partly to the caution of the sitting female, and more to the density 
of its cover, the nest of the Tolmie Warbler is not often found. When ap- 
proached the bird glides away silently from her nest, and begins feeding osten- 
tatiously in the neighboring bushes. This of itself is enough to arouse suspi- 
cion in an instructed mind, for the exhibition is plainly gratuitous. But the 
brush keeps the secret well, or, if it is forced, we find a bulky, loose-built affair 
of coarse dead grasses and rootlets, lined with black rootlets or horse-hair, 
and placed either in an upright fork of a bush, or built around the ascending 
stems of rank herbage at a few inches or at most two or three feet from the 
ground. Eggs, usually four in number, are deposited about the first week in 
June, and Tolmie babies swarm in July and August, quite beyond the expecta- 
tion of our ological fore season. 
A word of explanation regarding the change of name from Macgillivray 
to Tolmie is in order. ‘Townsend discovered the bird and really published it 
first, saying,? “I dedicate the species to my friend, W. T. Tolmie, Esq. of Fort 
Vancouver.”” Audubon, being entrusted with Townsend’s specimens, but dis- 
regarding the owner’s prior rights, published the bird independently, and tardi- 
a. ‘Narrative,’ April 1839, p. 343. 
