OVEN BIRD. 75 



OVEN BIRD. 



The "golden -crowned thrush" of the older writers was named 

 oven bird by the people because it shaped its nest like that old 

 fashioned structure in which their mothers baked the Christmas pies. 

 So the modern systematists, to relieve the bird of a name to which 

 it was not entitled, have followed the example of the people, and 

 have besides transferred the bird, in classification, from the thrush 

 family to the warblers. If you place a specimen of this warbler 

 beside any of the small thrushes you will forgive the early natural- 

 ists for their mistake — the two birds look so much alike. The oven 

 bird is smaller — shorter and slimmer — than any of the thrushes, 

 but in a general way it has the same form, and the same color 

 and markint-s. The plumes of the upper parts are of olive-tinted 

 russet, the crown bearing a patch of orange-brown (not golden) 

 bordered by stripes of black. The under parts are silvery white, 

 and marked with spots of olive. 



These birds are very common all over the Eastern Provinces, 

 arriving here early in May and remaining until September, when 

 they journey southward, wintering in Southern Florida and the 

 West Indies. Soon after their arrival in this countiy in the spring 

 they commence nest building, and an extremely cosy home they 

 manage to construct. It is made of vegetable fibres of various sorts 

 — shreds of bark, weed stems, grass, and leaves — which are rather 

 loosely interwoven. The typical nest is domed or roofed over, with 



