A CURIOUS SURVIVAL. 



ELLA F. MOSBY. 



THE tongue of a bird, says Mrs. 

 Olive Thorne Miller, is the tool 

 that shows how he gets his liv- 

 ing, as the anvil and hammer 

 tell of the blacksmith's work, the hod 

 of the bricklayer's, and the chisel and 

 plane of the carpenter's. The tongue 

 of the woodpecker is a barbed spear, 

 very adhesive or sticky on its surface. 

 We know at a glance that he uses it to 

 capture insects hiding in the crevices 

 of the bark, and if they are too small 

 to be speared by its sharp point, they 

 will stick to its gluey surface. "The 

 four-tined fork" of the little nuthatch 

 is admirable for catching grubs out of 

 the rough tree-trunk, and the slender 

 tube of the humming-bird's tongue 

 proves him a dainty taster of flower- 

 sweets, though he, too, catches 

 insects, with a click of his long, sharp 

 bill as he flies, when flowers are rare. 

 But there is a small bird whose tongue 

 does not tell his own story. His trop- 

 ical ancestry of many and many a year 

 ago, like the humming-bird, sucked 

 honey from flower-cups and juices 

 from fruits, and so by a very curious 

 survival of structure, this Cape May 

 warbler that feeds on insects now has 

 the tongue cleft at the tip and pro- 

 vided with a fringe like the iridescent 

 and shining sunbird's, the honey-creep- 

 er's and flower-pecker's of southern isles. 

 Their tongues, "pencils of delicate 

 filaments," brush the drops of honeyed 

 nectar from the deep tubes of tropic 

 flowers and their sharp, needle-like 

 bills probe the juicy fruits, though, like 

 humming-birds, the}' adds mall insects 

 to their bill of fare when necessary. 



This peculiarity on the part of the 

 Cape May is the more curious because 

 ^// the warblers, numerous as these are 

 and varying as widely as possible in 

 character, plumage and habits, are 

 alike in one respect — they are insect- 

 eaters. Whether they are ground 

 warblers or haunt river side and stream 



or explore trunk, branch, and twig- like 

 creepers, or glean their food from the 

 leaves, or resemble the flycatchers in 

 habit, they live on insects, flies, ants, 

 canker-worms, caterpillars, gnats, the 

 larvae and eggs of insects; nothing of 

 this sort comes amiss to them. Some 

 warblers seek this food in the tree- 

 tops, and rarely descend; others feed 

 on the ground and build their nests 

 there. Many frequent lower boughs 

 and shrubs, but all seek insects as their 

 prey. A few, it is true, like the eccen- 

 tric chat and the pretty gold-crowned 

 thrush, who is «^/ a thrush after all, in 

 spite of his speckled breast, are very 

 fond of berries. But none retain the 

 honey-sucking habits for which the 

 tube-like and fringed tongues, and 

 keen, needle-like bills, were fashioned. 



There is also a queer coincidence be- 

 tween the nest-making of the Cape 

 May warbler and that of the flower- 

 peckers in the Philippines Islands — 

 another curious survival. Mr. John 

 Whitehead, the naturalist and ex- 

 plorer, found a most exquisite rose- 

 colored pouch, which looked as if 

 formed of rose-petals, though it was in 

 fact made of other material. The little 

 honey-sucker had woven it together 

 with the silken threads of a spider's 

 web. Now, the Cape May warbler 

 weaves his partly hanging nest of twigs 

 and grass, and lines it with horsehair 

 in the great fir woods of the north, but 

 he, too, fastens it together zvitk spider s 

 zvebbing. 



The Cape May is a rare warbler. Ur. 

 Rives, in his list of Virginia birds, men- 

 tions it as "a rare migrant," though Dr. 

 Fisher says it is sometimes compara- 

 tively common in the fall near Wash- 

 ington. It was, therefore, a charming 

 surprise when (September, 1899,) I 

 found the Cape Mays our most com- 

 mon migrants at Lynchburg, Va. From 

 September 20 to October 18 our maple- 

 tree was rarely without them. A great 



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