^°^l?l'o^"] Staxwood, The Black-throated Green Warbler. 291 



On the fourth day when I visited the neighboring tree, the little 

 bird flew to a branch within a foot of my face, not showing the 

 least alarm. While she was perched beside me, I could not resist 

 talking to her. The little creature chirped softly as if to say, "I 

 don't like to have you here, but since you are, did you ever see 

 such a lovely nest, and such beautiful eggs ?' ' 



In twelve days, on July 1, the beautiful little mother had com- 

 pleted the task of incubation. A few seconds after I appeared 

 under the tree, the bird fell from the nest heavily to the ground, 

 like a dead weight. She acted as if she were lame, and her wing 

 broken. In this way she crept along some ten or fifteen feet. As I 

 turned to get down out of the tree, I saw her on the ground, appar- 

 ently helpless; when I reached the foot of the tree, she was in the 

 branches looking most deliberately for food. ^Yhen the female 

 was feigning helplessness, her colors seemed much brighter than 

 usual. She looked like an emerald set in gold, a winged gem. 



On the third day the young birds were growing rapidly, burnt- 

 orange in color, covered with an abundant supply of burnt-umber 

 down. The quills and pin feathers showed blue-gray through 

 the skin, and the eyes were just beginning to open. 



On the seventh day the nestlings were large and well covered 

 with grayish olive brown feathers on the back They had buffy 

 wing bars and were grayish-yellow-white underneath. Both 

 birds scolded me severely, particularly the male bird. The female 

 came very close and looked at me a great deal. Finally she dropped 

 to a branch where she fluttered with an apparently broken wing, 

 dropped helplessly to the ground, crawled along with seeming diffi- 

 culty, but finally succeeded in dragging herself up onto a log. It 

 was almost as if she said, "If you must take some one, take me." 

 The birds chirped piteously until I left the neighborhood. 



The eighth day the Black-throated Green Warblers Avere still 

 in the nest, but when we attempted to arrange them slightly for a 

 photograph, they all spilled over the side. We found three and put 

 them back into the nest. During all this time the parent birds 

 lingered around, sometimes scolding. Again the female clung 

 to a branch with disabled wing. The moment we left the nest, 

 the old birds returned to minister to the young. Tempting moths 

 and caterpillars were thrust down their hungry little throats. 



