MYRTLE WARBLER. 205 
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different species, the colors becoming intensified as the season advances. It seems as if 
the departed flowers of summer had revisited the earth, and were wreathing their 
garlands around the brows of the forest and the mountains. While the woods and 
thickets are glowing, we forget in our ravishment that fairy-like flowers of beau- 
tiful form and striking colors are still opening their chalices. They do not grow in 
exposed places and, to be admired, must be sought for. Not in fence corners and on 
road sides, where the weedy golden-rod still predominates, not in the thickets and wild 
pastures, where asters and gerardias bloom in great luxuriance, but in yonder glen, 
near water courses and rich meadows, we may cull the beauties of autumn, the gentians. 
The most charming species is the fringed gentian! with its enchanting beautifully fringed 
flowers. The smaller fringed gentian? and, further south, the prairie gentian® are also 
exceedingly beautiful. What can equal these flowers in the intensity of their rich deep 
blue chalices ? One might imagine that the autumnal sky borrowed its deep azure from 
the reflection of theseblossoms. The more common closed gentian‘ with its dense flower 
heads does not show such a striking color, being more light purple. In waste places 
the wild tobacco, introduced centuries ago by the Indians, still opens its yellowish 
flowers.—Despite the sunshine and the interminable beauty of the landscape, we are 
ever reminded that melancholy rules supreme. The merry song of the birds does 
not gladden our hearts as in May and June, most of our happy summer sojourners 
have already sought a warmer and more congenial clime. The crimsoning woods 
are but the presage of nature’s approaching death, “when the snow shall be a 
burial shroud and winter’s winds shall chant the funeral dirge.” During the night 
we hear the strange voices of innumerable birds, which are migrating southward 
high through the air. New arrivals from high northern latitudes are almost daily 
noticed. Juncos, White-throated, White-crowned, and Fox Sparrows, Palm Warblers 
and many others are swarming among the glowing bushes and thickets on the borders 
of the woods. 
Among Warblers the MyrtTLE Birp, MyrTLE WaRBLER, or YELLOW-RUMP is the 
most noticeable of all during autumn. It comes about the houses, even in towns and 
cities, darting spitefully about among trees and ornamental shrubs, uttering now and 
then a sharp chirping sound. This active bird is especially attractive among the 
gorgeous autumn foliage. We see them usually in companies of from five to ten and 
more, searching the trunk, the leaves, and branches for insects, their eggs, and larve, 
thus rendering invaluable service to the farmer and fruit-grower. It is a common bird 
in the northern gardens and woods in May, when the “leaves are as big as a chip- 
munk’s ear’’—as Mr. John Burroughs correctly remarks—; but still more numerous it 
is in the fine days of Indian summer. 
In Wisconsin, [linois, Missouri, and Texas the Myrtle Warblers are among the most 
common of all the feathered migrants. I found them wintering in great numbers in south- 
eastern Texas, near and in Houston, where the evergreens, such as live-oaks, magnolias, 
’ loblolly bays, hollies, cedars, and long-leaved pines, afforded them excellent resting places 
for the nights. In gardens they frequently roosted in the beautiful evergreen Banksia 
and Cherokee roses, in laurel cherry® and loquat trees*, and in the dense Chinese honey- 
1 @entiana crinita. 2% G. detonsa. *% G. puberula. 4 G. Andrewsii. 5 Cerasus Caroliniana. © Eriobotrya Japonica. 
