8 1 2 The Sparrow-like Birds 



their attractiveness in this respect consists in the tasteful arrangement or 'pat- 

 tern' of the colors rather than their brilliancy. Yellow is the most common 

 and characteristic hue, though this is usually relieved by markings or areas of 

 black, gray, olive-green, or white, usually by two or more of these colors; red 

 is not infrequent, grayish blue less common, while pure blue, green, or purple 

 are never present, and the plumage never glossy as it is in many Honey Creepers 

 and Tanagers." 



The Wood Warblers are found throughout North and Middle and South 

 America and constitute one of the most attractive elements of our bird life, 

 although never a very conspicuous factor, owing to their retiring disposition 

 and quiet ways. A large proportion of the genera are monotypic, that is, each 

 is represented by a single known species, although often separated into local 

 or geographic forms. Some are of wide distribution, spreading, for example, 

 over the whole of eastern North America, while others are confined to single 

 small islands in the West Indies. With a few exceptions the seventy or more 

 species found in the United States are highly migratory birds, passing rapidly 

 through in late spring to their summer homes, mainly beyond our northern 

 borders to the Hudson Bay region, Labrador, or even Alaska, returning to spend 

 the winter months in the Southern States, Mexico, Central and South America, 

 or the West Indies. A notable exception, however, is furnished by the Yellow- 

 rumped or Myrtle Warbler (Dendroica coronata), which has been known to spend 

 the winter as far north as Maine, Massachusetts, and central Ohio, where it feeds 

 on the berries of the myrtle or bearberry. 



" Musical proficiency might be reasonably presupposed in a group of birds 

 known by the delightfully suggestive name of 'Warblers,'" says Coues, "yet 

 they are not songsters of the first class, the most familiar notes by which they 

 are known during the migrations being weak, lisping tsceps." In their summer 

 homes, however, some of them display considerable vocal poVer, the Myrtle 

 Warbler, for example, being described by Dall as a "melodious and sprightly 

 singer," in its home along the Yukon, and the Mexican Thrush- Warbler is said 

 to be "one of the sweetest songsters of western Mexico." The voice of the Oven- 

 bird and the Water Thrushes (Seiurus} is delightfully clear and ringing as it 

 comes to us from the woodland shades. 



The nests of the Wood Warblers are usually good examples of bird architec- 

 ture. They are placed in forking branches, often of low bushes only a few feet 

 from the ground, though some species invariably build high up among the 

 branches of coniferous trees, while in the more terrestrial species the nest may 

 be placed in a dense tussock of grass on the ground, and at least one species 

 the Prothonotary Warbler selects a hole in a stump or tree. The nests are 

 usually deeply cup-shaped, composed of fine twigs, strips of bark, grasses, or pine 

 needles, and lined with fine root-like fibers, plant down, etc. The Oven-bird 

 (Seiurus aurocapillus), however, constructs on the ground a bulky covered nest 

 of coarse grasses, leaves, rootlets, etc., which has an opening on one side. 

 The eggs of the Warblers are usually four or five in number, whitish, generally 

 with brownish dots about the larger end. 



