APRIL BIRDS. 37 



tion the nightingale as the most prominent 

 representative of the family. Not only 

 are the warblers feeble singers, but they 

 are also most of them very difficult to 

 identify, as they flit about in the dense 

 foliage of the tree-tops in their search for 

 their insect food. As we walk through the 

 thick woods, we are generally conscious 

 of a half-suppressed, insect-like music in 

 the trees far over our heads, but seldom 

 associate it with these gaudily-dressed 

 visitors from the tropics. Some of the 

 members of this family, however, like the 

 oven-bird and the Maryland yellow-throats, 

 are ground-warblers, and are much better 

 known than most of their brethren, while 

 the half-domesticated little yellow warbler 

 is almost as familiar as the robin or the 

 chipping-sparrow. The pine-creeping is 

 the only warbler I have seen this season, 

 but by the tenth of May probably he will 

 be reinforced by the great body of his 

 congeners. Of the forty varieties of 

 warblers assigned by Audubon to North 

 America only a dozen or more are ever 



