THE SYCAMORE WARBLER. 



159 



with a piercing quality like that of the Yellow Warbler. Rev. W. F. Hen- 

 ninger, 1902, gives the bird as a "rare transient * * * observed in 

 Scioto County only;" while Raymond W. Smith (1891) reported it as a 

 common migrant in April in Warren County. 



It is more than probable that the decrease in numbers in the case of this 

 species is due solely to the continued destruction of the sycamore trees. Here, 

 at least, is a bird rightly named, for the Warbler has cultivated this grim 

 and grizzled old man-of-the-rivers whom all the other birds, save perhaps 

 the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and the King-bird, seem to shun until its de- 

 pendence upon it is almost absolute. That the bird was formerly not un- 

 common northerly is 

 abundantly attested, 

 and it may be that it 

 can still be found in 

 favored spots. Mr. 

 Jerome Trombley 

 knew it as a rare 

 summer resident 

 along the River 

 Raisin, in Monroe 

 County, Mich., and 

 in 1880 succeeded in 

 locating a nest. It 

 was placed 60 or 70 

 feet high in a syca- 

 more tree and at the 

 end of a branch, 

 some 20 feet from 

 the trunk. Inasmuch 

 as the tree was seven 

 feet through at the 

 base and the sup- 

 porting limb did not 

 promise to support 

 above a fifty pound 

 weight, the discov- 

 erer deemed thr 

 treasure unattain- 

 able. In 1897 the 

 same observer noted 

 only one bird. Un- 

 less definite steps are 



Photo by the Authc 



STILL-HOUSE HOLLOW. 



