Hints to Audubon Workers. 



•83 



sects, but not destitute of a certain plaintive 

 cadence. It is one of tlie most languid, 

 unhurried sounds in all the woods. I feel 

 like reclining upon the dry leaves at once. 

 Audubon says he has never heard his love- 

 song; but this is all the love-song he has, 

 and he is evidently a very plain hero with 

 his little brown mistress. He assumes few 

 attitudes, and is not a bold and striking 

 gymnast, like many of his kindred. He 

 has a preference for dense woods of beech 

 and maple, moves slowly amid the lower 

 branches and smaller growths, keeping 

 from eight to ten feet from the ground, and 

 repeating now and then his listless, indolent 

 strain. His back and crown are dark blue, 

 his throat and breast, black; his bell)^, pure 

 white; and he has a white spot on each 

 wing." 



SUMMER YELLOWBIRD ; GOLDEN WARBLER ; 

 YELLOW WARBLER. 



If you have caught glimpses of this little 

 fellow as he was building in your orchard 

 or the shrubbery of your garden, you may 

 have wondered about his relation to the 

 other yellowbird — the goldfinch, But when 

 you look at him carefully, you will find that 

 the two are entirely distinct. 



The goldfinch is bright canary color, and 

 has a black cap, tail and wings. The sum- 

 mer yellowbird, on the contrary, is a heavier 

 yellow, having no black to emphasize the 

 color, but obsolete brown streaks on the 

 breast that prevent his having a clear yel- 

 low look. 



The goldfinch is a larger bird, and has 

 the thick bill of the finch, instead of the fine 

 one of the warbler, as he lives on seeds in- 

 stead of insects. 



On the wing, at a distance, the peculiar 

 undulating flight of the goldfinch is enough 

 to distinguish him; and when you are near 

 enough to hear him sing, you will see that 

 his canary-like song bears no resemblance 

 to the warbler trill of the summer yellow- 

 bird. 



YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER; MYRTLE 

 WARBLER. 



During migration the yellow-rumped is 

 one of the most abundant warblers. It is 

 a hardy, robust-looking little creature; the 

 first to appear in the spring and one of the 

 last to leave in the fall. 



You can recognize it very easily in spring, 

 because the black zouave jacket it wears 

 over its white vest has conspicuous white 

 and yellow side pieces. In the fall the 

 black and yellow may be obscured, but its 

 yellow rump is always constant, and Coues 

 says he has never seen it without a trace of 

 yellow on the sides and in the crown. 



It is a fearless bird, and frequents under- 

 growth as well as treetops, and if you can 

 induce an adult male to keep still long 

 enough on a spring morning, you will easily 

 make out the yellow crown that sets off his 

 slaty-blue back, and the white chin that 

 gives the effect of a choker. 



Sometimes you will see large flocks of 

 the yellow-rumped without any other warb- 

 lers, but as a general thing you will discover 

 a few other species, and sometimes there 

 will be a dozen different kinds together. 



The myrtle warbler has a coarse z-y call, 

 and a trill that is heavier than that of the 

 golden warbler. It goes to the Northern 

 States, Nova Scotia, and northward to spend 

 the summer and raise its family, but comes 

 as far south as Florida during the winter. 

 Dr. Brewer says that Audubon studied its 

 habits there during a winter, and, he says, 

 "describes them as very social among them- 

 selves, skipping along the piazza, balancing 

 themselves in the air opposite the sides of 

 the house in search of spiders and insects, 

 diving through the low bushes of the garden 

 after larvae and worms, and at night roost- 

 ing among the orange trees." 



CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER. 



When I first saw the chestnut-sided warb- 

 ler, flitting about the upper branches of the 

 saplings in a raspberry patch, he was per- 



