THE OOLOGIST. 



119 



ran high and the citizens armed them- 

 selves and turned out en masse to 

 avenge themselves on the mysterious 

 stranger that had invaded their domain. 

 It is wonderful how that bird escaped, 

 ■dodged about from tree to tree and 

 ■evaded the hunters. One day I heard 

 23 shots fired at that one bird before he 

 quit the field, and he came back again 

 the next day. The decaying shade 

 trees must have furnished an excellent 

 feeding ground, for the Woodpecker 

 refused to abandon it and returned 

 every day until at last he was killed, to 

 the great relief of the public. 



In strange contrast to the noisy, 

 quarrelsome Red-heads were the Red- 

 bellied Woodpeckers, they were quite 

 numerous, but so quiet and reserved in 

 their manners and so chary of the pe- 

 culiar squealing notes which constitutes 

 their conversation that they might al- 

 most have passed unnoticed. They 

 were so still that I found their nests 

 only by accident and rarely at all. 

 Perhaps their guilty consciences im- 

 posed a melancholy reserve upon them, 

 for they are the true sapsuckers, chisel- 

 ing many holes in the bark of sugar 

 maple and other trees and drinking the 

 sweet viscid sap that accumulate] in 

 these cavities. 



I am not convinced that these birds 

 ■do any considerable damage to timber, 

 but if they do their cousins, the Flickers, 

 Golaptes auratus, make ample > repara- 

 tion, for they are the most industrious 

 of all the enemies of our insect pests. 

 They are constant residents here and 

 are always foraging no matter how cold 

 the weather may be. Six was the usual 

 number ©f eggs in such nests as I have 

 ■examined. It is curious to watch them 

 feed their young, both parents sharing 

 the labor, sometimes carrying the food 

 in their beaks and sometimes disgorg- 

 ing the food already swallowed for the 

 babies,-^:,, Sometimes an. old bird will 

 approach the^ negt .with ^. grub in its 

 beak. When the grub has disappeared 



down the infants hungry throat the old 

 bii-d will insert her beak into the young 

 Qnes mouth and begin the process of 

 regurgitation. 



Angus Gaines, 

 Vincennes, Ind. 



The Hooded "Warbler. 



Sylvania mitrata. 



Of the numerous birds comprising 

 the family of Warblers there are few so 

 attractive to the student of ornithology 

 as that beautiful bird, the Hooded War- 

 bler, [Sylvania mitrata), a rather wide- 

 ly distributed species. In Louisiana it 

 is one of the commonest of the Warbler 

 family, the dainty Parula alone excell- 

 ing it in numbers; and scarcely a bit of 

 brushy woods is there that does not af- 

 ford an habitation for two or more 

 pairs of this pleasing songster. 



The Hooded Warbler makes his in- 

 itial appearance in this state in the lat- 

 ter part of March, the males being usu- 

 ally observed a few days before the fe- 

 males. The first arrival for '95 was on 

 March 23, when several males were 

 noted, fully a week earlier than '94, 

 when they were first seen on March 

 31st. A week later males and females 

 were very common, in fact more nu- 

 merous than at any other period, as 

 many of the birds were passing mi- 

 grants. 



Like a good many of our breeding 

 Warblers, the males are in full song al- 

 most immediately after their arrival, 

 so that one is npt long in discovering 

 their presence. 



The Hooded Warbler has two distinct 

 songs, both consisting of about eight 

 notes, which are uttered continuously 

 during April. During the first part of 

 the month the birds are usually ftDuhd 

 in company with Other smaller birds, 

 the Sycamore, Prothonotairy ' and Par- • 

 ula Warblers,;? White' ^find ■Redded ' 

 Vireos and Titmice and their songs 



