320 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



selection of sites, and it is the exception in all these particulars 

 to find a warbler's nest that is not a real object of beauty, with 

 lovely surroundings. Taken as a group, the predominating col- 

 ors of the plumages are black, white, yellow, brown, olives, blues, 

 grays, the duller greens, but very rarely any of the reds or scar- 

 let, or other intensity of coloration. The young have different 

 plumages, always being duller, during the subadult stages. As 

 a rule, warblers lay from two to five eggs, or three to four; they 

 are usually white, and exhibit various kinds of speckling. Ridg- 

 \vay says the Black and White warbler (M. varia) embeds its 

 nest in the ground in the woods; w r hile the beautiful Prothono- 

 tary warbler (P. citrea) selects some cavity in a tree, or a de- 

 serted woodpecker's nest, the site being always near the water. 



At different times I have succeeded in making photographs of 

 a few of the warblers, with the nests and young of others. From 

 these I select two examples to illustrate the present chapter. 

 The first of these, shown in Figure 76, is a life-size picture of a 

 male specimen of the Black-poll warbler (Dendroica striata), a 

 black and white species, that during some years is very abun- 

 dant in certain localities. Usually, they are among the last of the 

 family to arrive in the spring, coming after the foliage is well 

 advanced, and, at first, confining themselves to the tree-tops, 

 but subsequently are found diligently searching for their favorite 

 insects among the lower branches. According to the A. O. U. 

 Check-List the geographical range of this species is " eastern 

 North America, west to the Rocky Mountains, north to Green- 

 land, the Barren Grounds, and Alaska, breeding from northern 

 New England and the Catskills northward. South in winter to 

 northern South America, but not recorded from Mexico or Cen- 

 tral America." Wilson never saw the nest of this species, and 

 gives but a very meager account of the bird. What there is of it, 

 however, is honest and correct, and this is more than can be 

 said of Audubon's description. Writing of the latter, Dr. T. M. 

 Brewer in the first volume of The American Naturalist (p. 120) 

 says, and we may " even be pardoned if we enjoy a quiet laugh 

 over some [of his] conclusions, now known to be visionary, but 

 which his exuberant imagination, now and then, led him to put 

 into printed words." It seems that when on their way with an 

 exploring party to Labrador, they stayed several days at East- 

 port, Maine. One morning when scrambling round through the 

 (or thickets of trees as he called them) with his son John. 



