EXPLORING THE GARDEN 



427 



a convenient place that your camera may get m its work ; 

 and you may, during the season, be led to take some 

 notes really worth the while, making bird histories that 

 others will be glad to read should they ever appear in 

 print. Notwithstanding that so much has been written 

 about our birds, coming, as it has, from many, many 

 pens, there still ranains ample material for the genera- 

 tions of young ornithologists in the years to come. 



Then there are the warblers which have been men- 

 tioned in a former pa*agraph and what a wonderful 

 grouj) they represent ! Among the first arrivals of them 

 in the spring is the Myrtle or Yellow-rump Warbler, an 

 elegant little fellow here shown in Figures i and 3 a 

 male bird, from life, as he appears on two sorts of 

 perches. As is the rule in this grou]). the male possesses 

 a more lively 

 coloration o f 

 plumage than 

 the female, al- 

 though its pat- 

 tern is about 

 the same. A 

 c o n s p i cuous 

 median stripe 

 of brilliant yel- 

 low ornaments 

 the crown ; the 

 lower back or 

 rump is the 

 same, and there 

 is some yellow 

 on the sides 

 otherwise the 

 plumage is 

 black, gray and 

 white, as indi- 

 cated in the 

 figures. Among 

 the warblers 

 generally the 

 chief colors are 

 various shades 

 of olive, gray, 

 orange, yellow, 

 rarely red, black and white, blue, and the dull greens of 

 various depths. The manner in which these colors are 

 distributed and contrasted accounts for the great beauty 

 of these little birds, while in the matter of song they are 

 far behind the real songsters of our avifauna. Their 

 little twittering notes are charming nevertheless, espec- 

 ially when we come to know them, and can, without seeing 

 the bird, recognize the species by its notes or simple 

 .song. It requires several springs of careful attention 

 and study to master this, and it truly is remarkable how 

 proficient some of our ornithologists have become in this 

 accomplishment. Not only are the notes recognized 

 when any particular warbler gives vent to them, but the 

 listener can imitate them to such perfection as to deceive 



LITTLE WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH 



Fig. 9 -A very familiar species of Eastern United States, representing a male, specimen, 

 taken natural size and in a characteristic pose. 



the songster itself. Recently there has been placed on 

 exhibition in the lower hall of the United States National 

 Museum, at Washington, cases containing mounted 

 specimens of nearly all of our true warblers ; so that 

 those interested in our birds, and in this group in par- 

 ticular, may study their forms and plumages at their 

 leisure. We have over fifty species of these little birds 

 in our avifauna; some are western types and never occur 

 in the Middle or Atlantic States and vice versa. 



Then, should there be some old trees on the place, 

 we are sure of visits from the noisy little White-breasted 

 Nuthatches (Fig. 9). This little gray, black and white 

 fellow was, years ago, known to me as the Black-capped 

 Nuthatch ; while Wilson, to make sure of the species, 

 called it by both names, giving the first the preference. 



Pennant, an or- 

 nithologist of 

 the last cen- 

 tury, consider- 

 ed that well- 

 known bird of 

 ours merely a 

 variety of the 

 European Nut- 

 hatch a very 

 patent error. It 

 was, however, 

 a very common 

 notion of the 

 c o n tine n tal 

 naturalists o f 

 his time to 

 make the claim 

 that a 1 1 the 

 plants and ani- 

 mals of this 

 country were 

 but mere "vari- 

 eties" of tho.se 

 of the 1 d 

 World. Here, in 

 the Middle 

 States, this little 

 fellow nests 

 early in April, generally selecting a hollow in some tree 

 where a hole leads into it. Sometimes they have been 

 known to select a hollow fence-rail for the same purpose. 

 The female lays, as a rule, five pretty litte white eggs, ra- 

 ther dull, and speckled with some shade of brown at the 

 larger end. She is the recipient of the closest attention 

 from the male during the period of incubation ; he keeps 

 her supplied with food, and constantly visits the entrance 

 to the nest, peeping in to see that all is well with his 

 much beloved mate. Should she come out for food or 

 for a little exercise, the male redoubles his attentions, 

 keeping up a perfect string of quaint love-notes to assure 

 her of his affection and guardianship. 



Far back in ornithological lore we were told that the 



