~ THE OOLOGIST. 
VoL. XXVII. No. 5. ALBION, N. Y. May 15, 1910. WHOLE No. 274 
Published Monthly, by R. M. Barnes, Albion, N. -Y., and Lacon, Illinois. 
THE WARBLERS 
The North American Warblers (Mniotiltidae) are among the most numerous 
family of the North American birds, occupying a place in our list beginning with 
(A. O. U. No. 636) Black & White Warbler and ending with (No. 693) Bell’s 
Warbler, and representing some seventy-nine species and sub-species, all but 
three of which are stragglers, being properly members of this family and truly 
Nort .merican birds. 
They range in size from slightly larger than our largest Humming bird to 
nearly the size of a Catbird, and include some of our brightest plumaged birds; 
though as a class they. are perhaps as little known to the general public as any 
other of the larger families of birds. This owing to their diminutive size and 
more or less secretive habits. Yet few families of birds are of more general 
service and use to the public. 
Being entirely migratory, they pass northward just at the time the small 
buds and leaves are opening under the smiles of Spring, and just at the time 
that the unnumbered multitudes of insects are hatching and scattering in mil- 
lions over all of the young growth. The food of the warblers is infinitismal 
and sometimes almost microscopic insects which are found on buds on the 
younger leaves of the trees, varied with occasional ground loving insects which 
are eaten by the ground warblers. The amount of good this family of birds 
does in the protection of the forests is beyond calculation and they should be 
rigidly protected. 
With this issue we present a number of articles upon some of the rarer mem- 
bers of this highly interesting family. 
