346 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



WOOD WARBLERS. 



Mniotiltidce. 



Next to the Sparrows in point of numbers, the Warblers fill 

 the same good office against insects that the former do against 

 weeds. " The Warblers have we always with us all, in their 

 own good time ; they come out of the South, pass on, return, and 

 are away again, their appearance and withdrawal scarcely less than 

 a mystery; many stay with us all summer long, and some brave 

 the winters in our midst. Some of these slight creatures, guided 

 by unerring instinct, travel true to the meridian in the hours of 

 darkness, slipping past like a ' thief in the night,' stopping at day- 

 break from their lofty flights to rest and recruit for the next 

 stage of the journey. Others pass more leisurely from tree to 

 tree, in a ceaseless tide of migration, gleaning as they go; the 

 hardier males, in full song and plumage, lead the way for the 

 weaker females and the yearlings. With tireless industry do the 

 Warblers befriend the human race; their unconscious zeal plays 

 due part in the nice adjustment of nature's forces, helping to bring 

 about the balance of vegetable and insect life without which agri- 

 culture would be in vain. They visit the orchard when the apple 

 and pear, the peach, plum, and cherry, are in bloom, seeming to 

 revel carelessly amid the sweet-stented and delicately-tinted blos- 

 soms, but never faltering in their good work. They peer into the 

 crevices of the bark, scrutinize each leaf, and explore the very 

 heart of the buds, to detect, drag forth, and destroy those tiny 

 creatures, singly insignificant, collectively a scourge, which prey 

 upon the hopes of the fruit grower, and which, if undisturbed, 

 would bring his care to nought. Some Warblers flit incessantly 

 in the terminal foliage of the tallest trees; others hug close to 

 the scored trunks and gnarled boughs of the forest kings ; some 

 peep from the thicket, the coppice, the impenetrable mantle of 

 shrubbery that decks tiny watercourses, playing at hide-and-seek 

 with all comers ; others more humble still descend to the ground, 

 where they glide with pretty mincing steps and affected turning 

 of the head this way and that, their delicate flesh- tinted feet just 

 stirring the layer of withered leaves with which a past season 

 carpeted the ground. We may seek warblers everywhere in their 

 season ; we shall find them a continual surprise ; all mood and cir- 



