PAPERS ON ZOOLOGY 185 
A bold, fearless, cruel, rapacious bird, but on account of the 
great number of mice, grasshoppers, beetles, ete., which it 
destroys, believed to do much more good than harm and should 
not be wantonly destroyed. 
THE PROTHONOTARY WARBLER. 
This beautiful little bird is often called the Golden Swamp 
Warbler. Its mission seems to be to add a bit of cheer and 
color to the dark swamps and desolate places of the rivers and 
lakes. It is a deep orange-yellow except the wings and tail, 
which are a slaty blue. The female is not so intensely colored. 
The notes are a clear ringing tweet, weet, weet, out of all pro- 
portion to the size of the bird. 
They will not be found in the parks or towns or wooded hills. 
They frequent no localities except rivers and lakes and swamps 
of willows and buttonwoods and borders of pools, only rarely 
do they nest over the water of a running stream. They associ- 
ate with the tree swallows, grackles and red-wing blackbirds 
nesting in the same localities. Sometimes a grackle or a Jennie 
Wren will be found in the same tree, the Grackles occupying 
an open cavity higher up, while the warbler will choose one 
down nearer the water. 
The male is extremely jealous of intrusion by others of his 
own tribe, upon his immediate premises he will scrap valor- 
ously if one of them comes near his chosen domicile, though he 
does not seem to object to the presence of other birds. 
The Thompson Lake country on the Illinois river is head- 
quarters for these strange warblers, strange because they 
stand almost alone in their habit of nesting in the holes of old 
stumps, snags and dead trees, almost always just a few feet 
above the water which sometimes rises and destroys their 
nests. They are queer too, because of the material used in con- 
structing their nests, which, when it can be obtained is made 
almost exclusively from green moss that grows around the base 
of willow trees standing in the water or mud. If a high stage 
of water covers up this material, they will use instead, fine 
blades of grasses. However when the moss can be found, noth- 
ing else is used. 
