AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 221 



out a few thick topped elms, select a comfortable seat somewhere near, 

 then if your neck is seasoned to the twisting and turning and tilting it 

 must undergo — the aches in the muscles which anatomists dignify by 

 the names Trapezius and Stemo-cleido-mastoideus won't last long 

 anyway — you may look for the richest display of the season. A beau- 

 tiful scene it is, little sprites in black and white, in neutral olives and 

 greens, in dazzling orange and vermillion hunt for a breakfast or play 

 a jolly game of hide and seek among the opening buds. 



In the course of a morning's ramble during the first week of May in 

 an area less than an acre covered with heavy walnut and elm timber I 

 was rewarded with glimpses of more than forty species of birds, many 

 of them our rarest and most brilliantly tinted warblers. Indeed it 

 seems to me that these little forest covered oases, such as this was, 

 set down amid the vast expanse of prairie present superior attractions 

 to the wood loving birds. At any rate in a given area they are present 

 in larger numbers than in any wooded part of the Mississippi valley I 

 ever visited from the tamarack swamps of Michigan to the pine forests 

 that fringe the Gulf. 



My glass was a good one and the first elm I selected very tall so I 

 retreated a few steps and sat down upon the narrow sidewalk in order 

 to drink in the details of the scene with more comfort. Here were the 

 Magnolia Warblers in striped vest of orange, black and white, jerky 

 redstarts in jet and salmon, the black-capped Wilson's Warbler with 

 coat of green and vest of yellow, the common Chestnut Sided and the 

 rarer Bay Breasted, the Black Poll with his funeral nightcap quite out of 

 harmony with his cheerful ways and sprightly actions, the business- 

 like Black and White Creeping Warbler that never stoops to vanity or 

 gayety, and the quiet Cape May with his black cap and rufous ear 

 patch. The last named warbler is quite rare so when he left the tree I 

 rose and followed him to make a better study. He stopped on a low 

 bough and gave me an opportunity to stare at him to my heart's ccri- 

 tent. Black crown patch, white on the wings, yellow-rump, and rufous 

 ear patch make the recognition of this bird quite easy. 



Black-throated Green Warblers were especially numerous and lively 

 that morning. The name is a happy combination of those features of 

 the bird's plumage which make identification simple and possible. 

 Wilson's, the Cape May and the Tennesee Warblers are not so appro- 

 priately nor suggestively named. There is no suggestion or hint of 

 the bird's appearance in the name to prepare the mind for readier rec- 

 ognition of the little fellows when the introduction comes. 



The prince of the Warbler tribe for rich tropical coloring is the Black- 

 burnian. After my chase of the Cape May I returned to the big elm 



