174 PROTHONOTARY WARBLER. 
and the listener feels inclined to stop his ears. The male is a fitful singer, and is quite 
as apt to be heard in the hot noontide or on cloudy days, when other birds are silent, 
as during the cool morning and evening hours. The ordinary note of alarm or distress 
is a sharp one, so nearly like that of the Large-billed Water Thrush (Seiurus motacilla) 
that the slight difference can only be detected by a critical ear. When the sexes meet a 
soft tchip of recognition common to nearly all the Warblers is used. In addition to 
the song above described the male has a different and far sweeter one, which is reserved 
for sele&t occasions,—an outpouring of the bird’s most tender feelings, intended for the 
ears of his mate alone, like the rare evening warble of the Ovenbird (Seiurus auricapillus). 
It is apparently uttered only while on the wing. Although so low and feeble as to be 
inaudible many rods away, it is very sweet, resembling somewhat the song of the 
Canary, given in an undertone, with trills or ‘water-notes’ interspersed. The flight 
during its delivery is very different from that at all other times. The bird progresses 
slowly, with a trembling, fluttering motion, its head raised and tail expanded. This 
song was heard most frequently after incubation had begun. 
“In general activity and restlessness few birds equal the species under consideration. 
Not a nook or corner of his domain but is repeatedly visited through the day. Now 
he sings a few times from the top of some tall willow that leans out over the stream, 
sitting motionless among the yellowish foliage, fully aware, perhaps, of the protection 
afforded by its harmonizing tints. The next moment he descends to the cool shades 
beneath, where dark, coffee-colored water, the overflow of the pond or river, stretches 
back among the trees. Here he loves to hop about on floating drift-wood, wet by the 
lapping of pulsating wavelets; now following up some long, inclining, half-submerged 
log, peeping into every crevice and occasionally dragging forth from its concealment a 
spider or small beetle, turning alternately his bright yellow breast and olive back 
towards the light; now jetting his beautiful tail or quivering his wings tremulously, he 
darts off into some thicket in response to a call from his mate; or, flying to a neighbor- 
ing tree-trunk, clings for a moment against the mossy bole to pipe his little strain or 
look up the exaét whereabouts of some suspected insect prize. 
“This Warbler usually seeks its food low down among thickets, moss-grown logs, 
or floating débris, and always about water. Sometimes it ascends tree-trunks for a 
little way like the Black and White Creeper, winding about with the same peculiar 
motion. When seen among the upper branches, where it often goes to plume its feathers 
and sing in the warm sunshine, it almost invariably sits nearly motionless. Its flight 
is much like that of the Water Thrush (either species), and is remarkably swift, firm, 
and decided. When crossing a broad stream it is slightly undulating, though always 
direct. Its food consists of inseéts, generally of such spiders and beetles as are found 
about water. Audubon positively asserts that he has discovered minute molluscous 
animals and small land-snails in their stomachs. 
“The nesting of the Prothonotary Warbler affords the most interesting phase of 
its life history. Audubon’s account of its nest, ‘fixed in the fork of a small twig bend- 
ing over the water,’ seems in the light of our present knowledge open to serious doubts. 
At least, it is not the mode of nidification used in the places where it is best known at 
the present day. Mr. B. F. Goss of Neosho Falls, Kansas, first brought to light the 
