156 



THE BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER. 



tlie rising sun the brightest is Prometheus, the torch-bearer. Like a beacon 

 Hght his glowing breast sends a quick answering flash to the first greeting 

 of the eastern majesty, and drunk with joy, the tiny spark moves off to 

 set the woods on fire. When his back is turned you lose him in the upper 

 green, but once around and flash! flash! come swift messages of beauty from 

 this divineh' fashioned heliograph. 



It is enough ! You know him now. For the rest the Blackburnian 

 Warbler hops about, and flits, and snatches bugs like other birds. Like 



Talccn near Obcrlin. 



THI-: OLD SOUTH WOODS— \\'.\RL!LER CORNER. 



PliOto f':i' the Aufhor. 



many others he too, alas ! passes far north to breed, quenching his flame for 

 the season in the bosom of some gloomy hemlock. During the spring mi- 

 grations the brightest males are among the middle early comers, but tho 

 paler females, and the youths with breasts unfired, abound from the middle 

 to the twentieth of May, and linger in rare instances until the end of that 

 month. The fall movement begins about the twentieth of August and lasts 

 through Septemljer. The summer nesting of this species is unusually suc- 

 cessful, to judge from the augmented numbers \\hich appear during the fall 

 mie'rations. 



