PROTHONOTARY WARBLER. 171 
field for the ornothologist. The willows are the chosen home of the Prothonotary 
Warbler; the undergrowth of the Hooded and Blue-winged Yellow Warblers; Ducks 
and other aquatic species have a secure home in the shelter of the water-lilies; Herons 
build their nests in the lofty tops, and Turkey Buzzards hide their young in the hollow 
bases of the gigantic sycamores.’ Thirty years or more ago, Parakeets (Conorus caroli- 
nensis) disturbed the solitude or drowned the voices of the songsters by their piercingly 
shrill screeching notes, but they have long since vanished, never to return. The Turkey 
still lingers, however, but must surely disappear when its shelter shall have passed 
away. 
Everywhere in these southern bottom lands the ponds are characteristic features. 
Some of them are open, but others are ‘filled with willow-trees', averaging perhaps 
fifty feet, but occasionally growing more than seventy feet, in height, but of slender 
form, while even the open ponds have a bordering fringe of these trees, occasionally 
mixed with swamp cotton-wood?. Inthe swampy tracts between the ponds grow dense 
and tangled thickets of button-bush’, clumps of black alder or water holly‘, tall stems 
of Amorpha fruticosa, and occasionally crooked, thorny trees of the water locust®. The 
open portions of the ponds are in summer choked with a rank growth of various aquatic 
plants, the ‘spatter-dock’’, prevailing, but giving way in deeper water to the beautiful 
western pond lily’.” 
The most beautiful and characteristic denizen of these ponds fringed with willows 
is the PROTHONOTARY WARBLER. I have observed this beautiful bird in south-eastern 
Texas, in south-western Missouri, and near St. Louis, when roaming through the 
woods with Mr. Otto Widmann, but it seems to be nowhere so abundant as in 
southern Indiana and Illinois. There it was observed by Mr. Robert Ridgway, the 
great ornithologist and artist of the Smithsonian Institution, and by Mr. Wm. 
Brewster of Cambridge, Mass., the ingenious naturalist and admirable writer. The 
bird under consideration is so beautiful and Mr. Brewster’s life-ssketch of the same is so 
classical and fascinating that it can be only in the interest of my readers, when I 
quote from him. Mr. Brewster writes: 
“The middle of April, 1878, found me at Mount Carmel, Ill., in the pleasant 
company of Mr. Robert Ridgway, with the delightful anticipation of a prospective four 
weeks among the birds of a, to me, new region. What ornithologist but has felt the 
sensations arising at such times,—the pleasing certainty of meeting many species that 
are known to occur; the stimulating hope of. detecting others that may, nay, probably 
will, be found; and the vague dream of securing some rare prize that shall excite the 
interest of the whole ornithological world? But most potent of all to encourage and 
sustain are the possibilities, without which the toils and hardships of field collecting 
would be but sad drudgery. A person of prosaic temperament can rarely if ever make 
a good field-worker. Enthusiasm must be the spur to success. At the time of our 
arrival there was a temporary lull in the development of the season. March and early 
April had been unusually warm and pleasant, and vegetation had far advanced. Many 
of the forest trees were already green with young foliage, and the leaves of others were 
t Salix nigra. 2 Populus heterophylla. 3 Cephalanthus occidentalis, 4 Mex verticillata. % Gleditschia monosperma. 
6 Nuphar advena. 7 Nymphza tuberosa. 
