THE WARBLERS 1665 



a timid but graceful bird, much sought after, by Indian bird catchers, on account of 

 its beautiful song. For this reason the shama is often exported to Europe as a 

 cage bird, but it is delicate, and requires care in the colder climate of Great Britain. 

 The shama nests from April to June, retiring into the depths of the jungle, and 

 constructing its nest of grass and dead leaves in the hollow end of the broken branch 

 of a tree. The eggs are greenish marked with reddish brown, and vary in number 

 from three to four. The adult male has the head, breast, back, and wing coverts 

 black; the rump and upper tail coverts are w r hite; the tail feathers are black and 

 black and white, and the abdomen and under tail coverts bright chestnut. The 

 glossy black and chestnut colors of the male are replaced in the female by dark 

 brown and pale rufous. 



The gray warbler and its congeners (Gerygone} possess a slender 

 ' r straight bill slightly curved and compressed; the wings are rather 

 short and rounded; the tail is long and rather rounded, and the metatarsus long and 

 slender. The birds of this group are found in Australia and New Zealand, ranging 

 also to New Guinea and adjacent islands. The gray warbler ( G. flaviventris} is 

 mentioned here because it performs the function of a foster parent for the young of 

 the two species of cuckoos found in New Zealand. It is a bird of sombre plumage 

 and unobtrusive habits, but utters at short intervals a note of much sweetness, and 

 is plentiful in every part of New Zealand, where it appears to be as much at home 

 in the woods as in the open scrub. Its food consists of small insects, which it 

 obtains in the leafy tops of forest trees as well as in the dense foliage of thick 

 bushes. Sir Walter Buller says: " In the Hot Lakes district I have found it flit- 

 ting round the steaming geysers, apparently unaffected by the sulphur fumes, and 

 catching the minute flies that are attracted thither by the humid warmth. Down by 

 the seashore its note may be heard in the low vegetation that fringes the ocean 

 beach; while far up the mountain side, where the scrub is scarce and stunted, it 

 shares the dominion with the ever-present Zosterops. Its sweet thrilling warble is 

 always pleasant to the ear, being naturally associated in the mind with the hum 

 of bees among the flowers, and the drumming of locusts in the sunshine." The 

 gray warbler is remarkable for the form of its nest, which is a domed structure, 

 belonging to one of two types the bottle-shaped nest with a porch entrance, and 

 the pear-shaped form without a porch. The materials used in nest building are dry 

 moss, grass, vegetable fibres, and spider webs. The eggs are white, often spotted 

 with red. The gray warbler is an attentive parent to the young of the cuckoos, 

 which are foisted upon it, and probably owes its preservation to the fact that it 

 builds a pensile nest out of the reach of rats and other vermin. The adult male 

 is olive brown above; the sides of the neck are dark ashy gray; the tail feathers are 

 ashy brown, shaded with black, and the throat, breast, and sides cinereous gray. 



While the chats, redbreasts, nightingales, and other members of the 

 Warblers su ^^ am ^y Ruticillinez are included by Mr. Gates among the Turdida?, 

 the true warblers and their kindred are regarded by the same ornithol- 

 ogist as constituting a separate family, Sylmidtz. On the other hand Professor 

 Newton includes the RuticiUinie in the Sylmidce; thus showing how very close is the 

 resemblance between the true warblers on the one hand and the thrushes on the 

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