WARBLERS. 



WHEN you begin to study the warblers you will 

 probably conclude that you know nothing about 

 birds, and can never learn. But if you begin by 

 recognizing their common traits, and then study 

 a few of the easiest, and those that nest in your 

 locality, you will be less discouraged ; and when 

 the flocks come back at the next migration you 

 will be able to master the oddities of a larger 

 number. They belong in pigeon-hole No. 9, la- 

 belled " wood warblers," and are a marked family. 



Most of them are very small much less than 

 half the size of a robin and are not only short 

 but slender. Active as the chickadee or kinglet, 

 they flit about the trees and undergrowth after 

 insects, without charity for the observer who is 

 trying to make out their markings. Unlike the 

 waxwing, whose quiet ways are matched by its 

 subdued tints, or the uniformly coated kinglets or 

 the greenlets in the pigeon-hole next to them, as 

 a group, the warblers are dashed with all the glo- 

 ries of the rainbow, a flock of them looking as if 

 a painter's palette had been thrown at them. You 

 can see no philosophy or poetry in the bewilder- 



