The Birds' Calendar 



which is usually the forerunner of the family. 

 It is about six inches long : olive above, throat 

 and breast bright yellow, passing into white 

 beneath, and two white wing-bars chiefly a 

 denizen of pine woods ; and whoever has found 

 it in its summer resorts will thereafter always 

 associate its simple, sweet, and drowsy song with 

 the smell of pines in a sultry day. It often 

 runs along the branches, an unusual occur- 

 rence for any bird, and especially for warblers, 

 whose nervous temperament commonly puts 

 them on the wing, as the most congenial 

 method of locomotion. Like the nuthatch the 

 pine-creeper often clings to the tree-trunk. It 

 is probably only seen as a migrant in this re- 

 gion, which is true of about half of the war- 

 blers, their summer home being in northern 

 New England and beyond. 



The reader of any ornithological literature 

 that is not technically scientific, will observe 

 the alternating occurrence of " he " and "it," 

 "who " and "which," in speaking of a bird. 

 This results from the writer's effort to satisfy 

 the demands of sentiment on the one side, and 

 of grammar on the other. For it is very dis- 

 tasteful to any bird-lover to degrade his friends 

 to the impersonality of the neuter gender, and 



