Flycatchers sit erect with drooping tails, watching alertly 

 for insect prey upon which they pounce in mid 

 air, afterguards returning to their perch; 



Swallows skim through the air in graceful and long sustained 

 flights; 



Sparrows have stout seed-cracking bills, feed upon the 

 ground, seldom fly high or far at a time and are 

 for the most part fine songsters; 



Warblers are tiny, tireless, gaily-colored explorers of the 

 twigs of trees and bushes; 



Kinglets are smaller than warblers and quite as restless in 

 their motions, but arrive earlier in the migra- 

 tion; 



Wrens, with tails erect, slip mouse-like about brush heaps, 

 crevices and bushes, though often perching in 

 sight while singing; 



Thrushes, who with the exception of the Robin and Bluebird 

 are very plainly dressed, run about on the 

 ground stopping suddenly in a listening attitude. 

 When singing they fly up to some perch, al- 

 though many of the unrivaled singers of this 

 family are silent during their brief sojourn in 

 city parks; 



Vireos are most at home on the boughs of trees and sing 

 freely as they glide in and out among the leaves 

 to feed. 



Female birds can usually be identified after the adult 

 males have been seen, although the females and young of 

 many species are obscurely marked or quite different from 

 the adult males, a fact especially true of the warblers. Im- 

 mature birds are not considered in the present scheme of 



10 



