180 SWAINSON’S WARBLER. 
“In addition to its song this Warbler utters a soft tchip indistinguishable from that 
of the Parula Warbler, but wholly unlike the cry of any Ground Warbler of my acquaint- 
ance. I heard this note on only one occasion, when the bird was excited over some 
disturbance in the shrubbery, perhaps the presence of a snake. 
“Although a rarely fervent and ecstatic songster, our little friend is also a fitful 
and uncertain one. You may wait for hours. near his retreat, even in early morning, 
or late afternoon, without hearing a note. But when the inspiration comes he floods 
the woods with music, one song often following another so quickly that there is scarce 
a pause for breath between. In this manner I have known him sing for fully twenty 
minutes, although ordinarily the entire performance occupies less than half that time. 
Such outbursts may occur at almost any hour, even at noontide, and I have heard 
them in the gloomiest weather, when the woods were shrouded in mist and rain. 
“When not singing Swainson’s Warbler is a silent, retiring bird, spending nearly 
his entire time on the ground in the darkest recesses of his favorite swamps, rambling 
about over the decaying leaves or among the rank water-plants in search of the small 
beetles which constitute his principal food.* His gait is distinctly a walk, his motions 
gliding and graceful. Upon alighting in the branches, after being flushed from the 
ground, he assumes a statuesque attitude, like that of a startled Thrush. While singing 
he takes an easier posture, but rarely moves on his perch. If desirous of changing his 
position he flies from branch to branch instead of hopping through the twigs in the 
manner of most Warblers. Under the influence of excitement or jealousy he sometimes 
jets his tail, droops his wings, and raises the feathers of the crown in a loose crest, but 
the tail is never jerked like that of a Geothlypis, or wagged like that of a Seiurus. On 
the contrary, his movements are all deliberate and composed, his disposition sedentary 
and phlegmatic. At the height of the mating season the males do occasionally show 
some spirit, chasing one ariother among the trees, or even attacking larger birds; but 
these lapses, like their song periods, seem to form comparatively rare breaks in a life 
which, for the most part, is passed in profound quiet and seclusion. 
“In these, as well as other characteristics, he is the very counterpart of the 
Connecticut Warbler, as I have observed the latter in the swamps about Cambridge. 
In none of them does he bear the least resemblance to the Worm-eating Warbler, with 
which he has been so closely associated by ornithologists. The Worm-eater is an active, 
restless bird, spending much of its time winding about the trunks and branches of trees 
in the manner of the Black and White Warbler. Moreover, it breeds by preference, if 
not invariably, in dry situations, such as traéts of oak scrub, on the steep sides of 
elevated ravines or mountain slopes—precisely such ground, in short, as is resorted to 
by the Ovenbird.... 
‘Judging by my personal experience, Swainson’s Warbler is at all times a singu- 
larly unsuspicious bird. If singing he may be usually approached within a few yards, 
even though the crashing that inevitably marks your every movement among the 
thickly-growing canes has long ago alarmed and silenced the other songsters of the 
swamp. When flushed from the ground he flies in silence to the nearest low branch, 
whence. he regards you with a half timid, half-wondering expression, precisely like that 
* The stomachs of all the specimens that I have examined contained exclusively small Coleoptera, 
