FIRST WEEK] May 105 



those birds which have made their winter home in Central 

 America land yet beyond our travels and which use 

 our groves merely as half-way houses on their journey to 

 the land of their birth, the balsams of Quebec, or the 

 unknown wastes of Labrador, seem most precious, most 

 worthy at this time of our closest observation. 



More confusing albeit the more delightful is a 

 season when continued cold weather and chilly rains hold 

 back all but the hardiest birds, until like the dammed-up 

 piles of logs trembling with the spring freshets the tropic 

 winds carry all before them, and all at once winter birds 

 which have sojourned only a few miles south of us, summer 

 residents which should have appeared weeks ago, together 

 with the great host of Canadian and other nesters of the 

 north, appear within a few days' time. 



A backward season brings strangers into close com- 

 pany for a while. A white-throat sings his clear song of 

 the North, and a moment later is answered by an oriole's 

 melody, or the sweet tones of a rose-breasted grosbeak 

 the latter one of those rarely favoured birds, exquisite in 

 both plumage and song. 



The glories of our May bird life are the wood warblers, 

 and innumerable they must seem to one who is just begin- 

 ning his studies ; indeed, there are over seventy species that 

 find their way into the United States. Many are named 

 from the distribution of colour upon their plumage the 

 blue-winged yellow, the black-throated blue, chestnut- 

 sided, bay-breasted, and black poll. Perhaps the two 

 most beautiful most reflective of bright tropical skies 

 and flowers are the magnolia and the blackburnian. 



