tinted with olive make him a marked bird. 

 UnHke the parula, he cares nothing for 

 treetops or sunshine ; a perch on a swing- 

 ing rattan vine or in a shrub in the dark 

 woods hard by a canebrake is good 

 enough for him. 



As soon as the hooded warbler appears 

 we will see the black and white creep- 

 ing warbler, the connecting link (so to 

 speak) between the creepers and war- 

 blers in both appearance and habits. Like 

 our common brown creeper, he loves the 

 dense woods, but unlike him seems to 

 prefer the tops and higher branches. Al- 

 ternate patches and streaks of white and 

 black without a suggestion of the yellow 

 or olive green so characteristic of his 

 genus make his identification easy. His 

 note is simple and short; in fact the 

 sounds that he emits in his journeys are 

 scarcely worth being called a song. 



The flood tide comes about the first 

 of April and lasts two weeks. Prominent 

 among the multitude of visitors you may 

 see a warbler slightly smaller than the 

 hooded but of the same general coloring, 

 yellow, black and green, only in this bird 

 the black is in three patches, one on the 

 top of the head, the others running from 

 the bill back and down. This is the Ken- 

 tucky warbler, a lover of the ground and 

 of the low growths. There is another 

 that the hasty observer might mistake for 

 the hooded or the Kentucky, and that is 

 the Maryland yellowthroat. The black 

 on the latter is confined to broad bands 

 of rich velvety black below the eyes ; the 

 yellow is more of a sulphur than a chrome 

 shade, and the green is more nearly olive 

 than in the two just mentioned. Many 

 of this species make their summer home 

 in this latitude, making their nests and 

 rearing their broods in the mat of vines 

 and weeds along the fence rows. The 

 usual song is wichety, wichety, wichety, 

 uttered with the cheerful vigor that 

 makes the Carolina wren so attractive. 

 During the months of April and May, 

 1900, I had frequent opportunities to ob- 

 serve two pairs of yellow throats that had 

 built just inside the fence that parallels 

 the railroad; the males, as they caught 

 sight of me coming down the track, would 

 mount the highest weed within reach and 

 sing with all their might, but as I came 

 opposite their perch would drop suddenly 



down into the weeds and remain there 

 till I was well past, then resume their 

 perch and song as long as I was in hear- 

 ing. 



Another of this family conspicuous for 

 its brilliant coloring is the prothonotary 

 warbler. Yellow breast, head, neck and 

 shoulders, yellowish olive wings and back 

 and darker olive tail render him conspic- 

 uous against any woodland background. 

 If you want to see him during these busy 

 April days we must go where he is, i. e., 

 in the cypress or willow swamps. The 

 dark gray festoons of Spanish moss 

 (Tillandsia usneoides) and the tender 

 young green of the cypress leaves afford 

 both contrast for his bright colors and 

 provisions for his larder. Some of this 

 species also nest here, choosing for their 

 homes oftentimes the holes made by some 

 of our smaller woodpeckers in dead wil- 

 low stubs. I remember one morning see- 

 ing a cheerful flock of prothonotary and 

 parula warblers and noticing one of the 

 former leave his companions and fly to 

 a clump of willows where another less 

 brilliantly colored, presumably the female, 

 joined him. Together they inspected the 

 willow stubs, running in and out and up 

 and down the trunks, peering into every 

 cavity. Finally they found one that met 

 their requirements, then, after a short but 

 earnest discussion, flew away through the 

 swamp. 



Inhabiting the marshes and swamps is 

 the Louisiana water thrush, a slender 

 brown bird shaped much like the brown 

 thrasher, only much smaller, being about 

 six inches in length as compared with the 

 thrasher's eleven or twelve. A gifted 

 singer, he is very wild and shy, always 

 resenting the intrusion of the lords of 

 creation upon his quiet haunts, flitting 

 quietly on before you in the shadows, 

 evincing his distrust of your motives by 

 an occasional angry "clink." He well 

 Illustrates the principle of compensation : 

 though denied the brilliant yellows and 

 greens of his warbler brethren, he sur- 

 passes them all In the quality of his song, 

 as free, as beautiful, as wild as the bird 

 himself. All the Individuals of this spe- 

 cies that I saw In three years' observation 

 were either In the water beeches (Carpl- 

 nus carollnlana) that grew so thickly 

 along the creek or In the sweet gums 



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