106 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



when household duties do not interfere, they are busied, not 

 with such marked activity as some other warblers, from dawn 

 until evening, in searching among the branches of low bushes 

 and saplings for the small caterpillars and insects upon whicji 

 they feed. They do not usually make any demonstrations 

 if their nest is examined, but remain quietly in the neighbor- 

 hood of it until they can safely return. They do not attempt 

 to lead off the intruder by feigning lameness, as many other 

 warblers do, especially those who habitually build their nests 

 on or very near the ground. 



(d) . Their song cannot fail to attract the attention of every 

 person who hears it, and who takes an interest in birds. Its 

 notes, resembling the syllables zee-zee-zee-zee-zee-zee-zee, are 

 uttered in a very peculiar tone, and each note is a little higher 

 and louder than the preceding. The birds, on uttering it, 

 frequently depress their tail. The ordinary note of the often 

 silent Prairie Warblers is a chirr. 



(C) PENNSYLVANICA. Chestnut-sided Warbler. 



(In southern New England, a common summer-resident.) 



(a). About 5-] inches long. Back, light ashy-yellow, black- 

 streaked. Under parts, white. Wing-bars the same, generally 

 forming one patch. Crown, yellow, bordered by white. Lore, 

 continuously with a line through the eye and one down to a 

 chestnut-red patch on the side of the breast, black. 



(6). The nest is usually coarser than that of the Yellow 

 Bird (A), and contains fewer woolly materials. It is often 

 composed outwardly of narrow strips of thin bark or dried 

 grasses, mixed with a few bits of plant-down, and inwardly of 

 very fine straw, which is lined with hairs. Such is the descrip- 

 tion of two nests before me. The^nests are commonly placed 

 from two to eight feet above the ground in a low bush, shrub, 

 or sapling, and are either built in a fork or otherwise secured 

 (but are never pensile). The situations generally chosen are 

 the " scrub-lands," or open woods in low grounds which contain 

 bushes, vines, etc. Near Boston they are usually finished, and 

 contain four or five fresh eggs, about the first of June. The 



