1885.] Brewster on Stvainson's Warbler. 7 7. 



overhead, the next among the bushes almost at your feet. Hur- 

 rying hither and thither with rapidly diminishing caution you 

 finally lose all patience and dash through the tangle, tripping 

 over hidden obstructions or perhaps floundering in morasses at 

 iminent risk of being bitten by some venomous moccasin. When 

 at length you pause near the starting point, tired of the fruitless 

 pursuit, and convinced that your will-o'-the-wisp has been 

 momentarily changing his position, you may perchance discover 

 him sitting quietly near the end of some low branch, where he 

 has probably been all the while, calmly curious perhaps with 

 respect to the strange two-legged creature rushing about beneath, 

 but more likely lost to everything except his own ecstatic music. 

 At times, however, he actually will flit from perch to perch as 

 you advance, keeping more or less concealed among the foliage. 



In addition to its song this Warbler utters a soft tcJiip indistin- 

 guishable from that of Parula americana, but wholly unlike the 

 cry of any Ground Warbler of my acquaintance. I heard this 

 note on only one occasion, when the bird was excited over some 

 disturbance in the shrubbery, perhaps the presence of a snake. 



Although a rarely fervent and ecstatic songster, our little friend 

 is also a fitful and uncertain one. You may wait for hours near 

 his retreat, even in early morning, or late afternoon, without 

 hearing a note. But when the inspiration comes he floods the 

 woods with music, one song often following another so quickly 

 that there is scarce a pause for breath between. In this manner 

 I have known him sing for fully twenty minutes, although ordi- 

 narily the entire performance occupies less than half that time. 

 Such outbursts may occur at almost any hour, even at noontide, 

 and I have heard them in the gloomiest weather, when the woods 

 were shrouded in mist and rain. 



When not singing Swainson's Warbler is a silent, retiring bird, 

 spending nearly his entire time on the ground in the darkest 

 recesses of his favorite swamps, rambling about over the decaying 

 leaves or among the rank water-plants in search of the small 

 beetles which constitute his principal food.* His gait is distinctly 

 a walk, his motions gliding and graceful. Upon alighting in the 

 branches, after being flushed from the ground, he assumes a stat- 

 uesque attitude, like that of a startled Thrush. While singing he 



* The stomachs of all the specimens that I have examined contained exclusively 

 small Coleoptera. 



( 



