Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 



Examine the spot more carefully, and on one side you find an 

 openmg and within the ball of earth, softly lined with grass lie 

 four or five cream- white, speckled eggs. It is only by a happy 

 accident that this nest of the ovenbird is discovered The con 

 cealment could not be better. It is this peculiarity of nest con- 



'^'L"?^^'" ''''P' '*''" ' ^""^'^ oven-that has given the bird 

 what DeKay considers its "trivial name." Not far from the nest 

 the parent birds scratch about in the leaves, like diminutive barn- 

 yard fowls, for the grubs and insects hiding under them. But at 

 the first suspicion of an intruder their alarm becomes pitiful 

 Panic-stricken, they become fairly limp with fear, and drooping 

 her wings and tail, the mother-bird drags herself hither and 

 thither over the ground. 



As utterly bewildered as his mate, t.ie male darts, files, and 

 tumbles about through the low branches, jerking and wagging 

 his tail in nervous spasms until you have beaten a double-quick 

 retreat. ^ 



In nesting time, at evening, a very few have heard the " lux- 

 urious nuptial song" of the ovenbird; but it is a song to haunt 

 the memory forever afterward. Burroughs appears to be the 

 first writer to record this "rare bit of bird melody." "Mounting 

 by easy flight to the top of the tallest tree," says the author of 

 Wake-Robin, ' "the ovenbird launches into the air with a sort 

 of suspended, hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and 

 bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song-clear, ringing, copious, 

 rivalling the goldfinch's in vivacity and the linnet's in melody " 



Worm-eating Warbler 



( Helmintberus vermivorus) Wood Warbler family 



Length-^.^o inches. Less than an inch shorter than the English 

 sparrow. i-ugnsn 



Male and Female-Gx^^nx^\, olive above. Head yellowish brown 



wlA ir ^Y"-^ ^P'' ^^•'^"^'^ '^'■°^" to the nape; also 



white ^^^' ^° "^'''* '^"'^^'' P'"*^' ^"'^y '''"'* 



i?««^.-Eastern parts of United States. Nests as far north as 

 southern Illinois and southern Connecticut. Winters in the 

 Gulf States and southward. 



Migrations— W^y. September. Summer resident. 



-_,.,., i8i. .___,. 



