THE WARBLERS AND THE VIREOS. 115 



New England winter when its congeners are basking in the 

 sunshine of the South. It is distributed over a large North 

 American range, and is abundant in all sorts of situations, 

 especially during the spring and autumn migrations. It 

 breeds regularly in the far North, commonly nesting, how- 

 ever, in the northern tier of States and in southern Canada. 

 According to Ridgway, it is a common winter resident in 

 southern Illinois. Of twenty-one specimens studied by King, 

 44 one had eaten a moth ; two, twenty-one caterpillars, mostly 

 measuring worms ; five, fourteen two-winged flies, among 

 which were three crane-flies ; fifteen, forty-eight beetles ; one, 

 four ichneumon-flies ; one, a caddis-fly ; and one, a spider. 1 ' 

 Our own studies l of many specimens show that in autumn 

 three-fifths of its food consists of myrtle-berries, the remainder 

 being largely insects, while in spring the insect ratios are 

 much greater. 



The YELLOW WARBLER, or SUMMER YELLOW-BIRD, is probably 

 the best-known member of its family. It seems perfectly at 

 home throughout the whole of North America, from the trop- 

 ical regions of the South to the arctic lands of the North. It 

 is a familiar and confiding bird, associating freely with civilized 

 man, and building its neat nest of vegetable fibre in the trees 

 of the orchard, park, family residence, and public thorough- 

 fare. Three or four eggs are usually deposited in the nest, 

 and when an additional one is left by a skulking cow-bird, 

 the warblers with a wisdom beyond their size sometimes 

 add another story to the nest and begin again their domestic 

 duties, leaving the stranger egg and if necessary some of their 

 own to go unhatched. 



The food habits of the yellow warbler are all that could be 

 desired. It freely visits farm premises and feeds on minute 

 insects of many kinds. Two-thirds of the food of five Illinois 



dearborn and Weed, Tech. Bulletin No. 3, N. H. C. Exp. St., Food 

 of the Myrtle-Warbler. 



