THE WARBLER FAMILY 281 



reached by the flycatchers — small, modest-mannered little 

 creatures that do their work so quietly you hardly notice 

 them. All you see in your tall tree-tops is a three-foot flit 

 or glide, now here, now there, as the foliage is literally combed 

 of its insect-life. Bulletin No. 44 of the Department of 

 Agriculture gives the residuum of an exhausting examination 

 of 3,398 warbler stomachs, from seventeen species of birds, and 

 the result is: 94.99 per cent of insect food — mostly destructive 

 insects, too — and 5.01 per cent of vegetable food. What 

 more can any farmer or forester ask of the tree-protectors 

 than that! 



The difficulty in studying warblers lies in cultivating 

 them effectively without killing them. As for myself, I have 

 not yet seen the day wherein I could find myself willing to 

 slaughter from five hundred to a thousand of these exquisite 

 little creatures for the sake of becoming sufficiently acquainted 

 with them to name them ivhen they are dead! I blush not 

 in admitting that I have gone half way through life knowing- 

 less than a score of warblers to the point of naming them, 

 accurately, as they fly before me. My exhortation to all 

 young people is — do not slaughter birds, of any kind, merely to 

 become acquainted with their names. Some of the wild flowers 

 can endure that method without extermination, but the wild 

 birds and mammals can not. 



It is not at all essential that such tiny, inconspicuous crea- 

 tures as warblers should be recognized and correctly named 

 at sight. Already a million warblers have died to make 

 holidays for collectors. Not long since I received from an 

 egg-dealer a circular advertising the following eggs for sale: 



