SONG- BIRDS OF ORCHARD AND WOODLAND. 199 



One day, as I stopped to drink at a spring in the woods, a 

 beautiful male Black-throated Green Warbler shot down from 

 a tall tree and alighted on a moss-grown rock that bordered 

 the diminutive pool. Evidently he had not expected me, but 

 was not at all afraid. He looked up at me inquiringly for a 

 moment, and then, stepping into the 

 shallow water, dipped his head and 

 threw the drops in showers as he 

 shook out his brilliant plumage 

 in the bath. His ablutions 

 finished, quite within reach 

 of my hand, he mounted again 

 to the tree top, and sent back his drowsy 



SCmg- Fig. 67. Black-throated 



This bird has several chirps which it Green Warbl r natural 



size. 



utters to express different emotions, but 

 its song is most charming, harmonizing, as it does, with the 

 whispering of the pines to the summer wind. It has a zeeing 

 sound. Hoffman gives it as zee, zee, zu, zi. This is given 

 w r ith a little of the quality which characterizes the song of the 

 harvest cicada, and often with a difference in the pitch of the 

 first and last syllables. John Burroughs graphically repre- 

 sents the notes thus : v^" Tne upper lines signify 



the higher tones. Bradford Torrey translates the song as 

 "Trees, trees, murmuring trees ; " but a more practical writer 

 assures us that the bird calls for " Cheese, cheese, a little 

 more cheese." It has at least one other song of the same 

 character, but longer and perhaps a trifle more varied. This 

 is usually considered to be its entire repertoire; but no one 

 can ever be quite sure that he knows all the notes of any 

 bird. In the fall of 1905 I heard in a small birch tree in 

 Concord a song that resembled closely the lay of a Warbling 

 Vireo. In fact, I mistook it for the song of that bird; but 

 in trying to find the singer I soon learned that there was 

 no Vireo in the tree, and that the song came from a young 

 male Black-throated Green Warbler, which repeated it sev- 

 eral times before my eyes. 



Mr. C. A. Reed says he believes that when its nest is in 

 danger of discovery this Warbler sometimes brings straws 



