THE PRAIRIE WARBLER. 



{Dendroica discolor. ) 



This beautiful little Warbler cannot 

 fail to awaken an interest in bird life in 

 the mind of any person whose privilege 

 it is to observe it in its chosen haunts. 

 These are the shrubby pasture lands and 

 the open woods of the eastern United 

 States. It is more common in barren, 

 sandy places of the Atlantic coast, where 

 it seems to find an insect food suited to 

 its taste. It not infrequently visits or- 

 chards, when in bloom, especially those 

 in retired localities. Wilson, who wrote 

 enthusiastically of the Prairie Warbler, 

 says : "They seem to prefer open plains 

 and thinly-wooded tracts, and have this 

 singularity in their manners, that they 

 are not easily alarmed, and search among 

 the leaves the most leisurely of any of 

 the tribe I have yet met with, seeming 

 to examine every blade of grass and 

 every leaf, uttering at short intervals a 

 feeble chirr." 



Dr. Coues was also an ardent admirer 

 of this little bird and during his college 

 days frequently hunted and studied its 

 habits. He found the ''inflection of the 

 Prairie Warbler's notes a much more 

 agreeable theme than that of a Greek 

 verb," and possibly quite as profitable. 

 He says : "There was a little glade just 

 by the college, a sloping sandy field run 

 waste with scattered cedars, where we 

 could be sure of finding the Warblers 

 any day, from the twentieth of April, 

 for two or three weeks. Ten to one we 

 would not see the little creatures at 

 first. But presently, from the nearest 

 juniper, would come the well known 

 sounds. A curious song, if song it can 

 be called — as much like a mouse com- 

 plaining of the toothache as anything 

 else I can liken it to — it is simply in- 

 describable. Then perhaps the quaint 

 performer would dart out into the air, 

 turn a somersault after a passing midge, 

 get right side up and into the shrubbery 

 again in an instant." 



The flight of the Prairie Warbler is 



neither strong nor protracted. Yet it is 

 one of the most expert fly catchers 

 among the Warblers. It is not a social 

 bird and it is very seldom that more than 

 two or three are seen together. A pecu- 

 liar characteristic of this Warbler is 

 that it does not try to lead an intruder 

 away from the vicinity of its nest. Mr. 

 Nuttall speaks of removing two eggs 

 from a nest and replacing them in a 

 short time. Each time he removed the 

 eggs the female bird returned to the 

 nest. 



The Prairie Warbler is prettily col- 

 ored. The back is marked with reddish- 

 brown spots on an olive-green ground. 

 Beneath the eye of the male there is a 

 streak of black which is absent in the 

 female. The throat and under parts are 

 a rich yellow color, with small spots of 

 black on the sides of the neck. The fe- 

 male is duller in color. 



The nest is nearly always placed in 

 the fork of a branch of either a tree or 

 shrub and never far from the ground. 

 A wild rose bush is sometimes selected. 

 Mr. Welch describes one that he found 

 in such a place. It was mainly construct- 

 ed of "the soft inner bark 'of small 

 shrubs mingled with dry rose leaves, bits 

 of wood, woody fibers, decayed stems of 

 plants, spiders' webs, etc." These were 

 elaborately woven together and bound by 

 "cotton-like fibers of a vegetable origin." 

 The nest had a lining of fine fibers and 

 horse hair. He also calls attention to 

 the upper rim of the nest, it "being a 

 strongly interlaced weaving of vegetable 

 roots and strips of bark." 



Mr. Nuttall describes the nest as not 

 unlike that of a summer yellow-bird. He 

 speaks of one that he examined as "being 

 fixed in a trifid branch and formed of 

 strips of inner red cedar bark and ascle- 

 pias (milkweed) fibers, also with some 

 caterpillar silk, and thickly lined with 

 cud-weed down and slender tops of the 

 bent grass (Agrostis.)" 



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