506 



PERCHING BIRDS. 



September, when it presses gradually south into all the Southern States, a few 

 continuing their journey into South America. Dr. Coues gives the following descrip- 

 tion of its habits : — " To observe the manners of the rubycrown one need only repair 

 at the right season to the nearest thicket coppice or piece of shrubbery. These are its 

 favourite resorts, especially in the fall and winter : though sometimes, more parti- 

 cularly in the spring, it appears to be more ambitious, and its slight form may be 

 almost lost among the branches of the taller trees. We shall most likely find it 

 not alone but in straggling troops, which keep up a sort of companionship with each 

 other as well as with different birds, though each individual seems to be absorbed in 

 its particular business. We hear the slender wiry note, and see the little creatures 

 skipping nimblj' about the smaller branches in endlessly varied attitudes, peering 

 in the crevices of the bark for their minute insect- food, taking short nervous 

 flights from one bough to another, twitching their wings as they alight, and always 

 too busy to pay attention to what may be going on around them." The rubycrest 

 builds a tiny nest consisting of a mass of hair and feathers mixed with moss and 

 some short bits of straw ; commonly breeding in the heavy pine and spruce 

 forests on the mountains of Colorado and also in Arizona. It was of the rubycrest 

 that Audubon himself wrote : "When I tell you that its song is fully as sonorous as 

 that of the canary-bird, and much richer, I do not come up to the truth ; for it is not 

 only as powerful and clear, but much more varied and pleasing." The male has a 

 rich scarlet crest ; the upper-parts arc greenish olive, and the wings and tail dusky ; 

 the under-parts being yellowish-white. 



The Wood-Warblers. 



Family MxiOTILTID^E. 



The American family of birds known as wood-warblers may be con- 

 veniently mentioned here, not only on account of their popular name, which 

 causes them to be associated with the warblers of the Old World, but also from 

 the circumstance that they are probably more or less closely related to the 

 Ccerebidce, among which they are placed by Brehm. It would be useless 

 to attempt to define the whole family, or to mention the numerous genera ; 

 and we consequently select for illustration the black-throated green warbler 

 (Dendra'cn rirrn.s) as a well-known example of a large and widely-spread genus. 

 Small in build, the numerous species of this large group have the beak of 

 variable size, conical in shape, and provided with rictal bristles ; while the wings 

 are long and pointed, the first and second primaries being the longest. The 

 metatarsus is long, and the claws are rather small and much curved. The coloration 

 of the tail-feathers is a good clue to any member of this genus, since these are 

 almost invariably blotched with white. Of thirty-five reputed species of this 

 genus of wood-warblers, twenty-six have been ascribed to North America, one of 

 the best known of these being the summer yellow-bird of the United States, an 

 abundant and familiar denizen of parks and orchards ; while another is the lovely 

 orange-breasted Blackburn's warbler, of which Dr. Coues says, " there is nothing 

 to compare with the exquisite hue of this Promethean torch." The black- 



