THE WARBLER FAMILY 281 
reached by the flycatchers—small, modest-mannered little 
creatures that do their work so quietly you hardly notice 
them. All you see in your tall tree-tops is a three-foot flit 
or glide, now here, now there, as the foliage is literally combed 
of its insect-life. Bulletin No. 44 of the Department of 
Agriculture gives the residuum of an exhausting examination 
of 3,398 warbler stomachs, from seventeen species of birds, and 
the result is: 94.99 per cent of insect food—mostly destructive 
insects, too—and 5.01 per cent of vegetable food. What 
more can any farmer or forester ask of the tree-protectors 
than that! 
The difficulty in studying warblers lies in cultivating 
them effectively without killing them. As for myself, I have 
not yet seen the day wherein I could find myself willing to 
slaughter from five hundred to a thousand of these exquisite 
little creatures for the sake of becoming sufficiently acquainted 
with them to name them when they are dead! I blush not 
in admitting that I have gone half way through life knowing 
less than a score of warblers to the point of naming them, 
accurately, as they fly before me. My exhortation to all 
young people is—do not slaughter birds, of any kind, merely to 
become acquainted with their names. Some of the wild flowers 
can endure that method without extermination, but the wild 
birds and mammals can not. 
It is not at all essential that such tiny, inconspicuous crea- 
tures as warblers should be recognized and correctly named 
at sight. Already a million warblers have died to make 
holidays for collectors. Not long since I received from an 
egg-dealer a circular advertising the following eggs for sale: 
