BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER. 219 
they shed their leaves. This is especially the case with the live-oak and magnolia. They 
cast their old leaves in April, before the flowers and the new leaves appear. Some of 
these magnificent trees are then nearly denuded, while the ground underneath is 
bestrewn with yellow, orange-tinted, and scarlet foliage. Orchards are in full bloom 
usually in March, but I saw peach trees opening their flower-buds as early as February 
20. Warblers, as a rule, do not appear from their winter-quarters before the forest 
trees are clad in green verdure and beautious masses of flowers. Only then these deli- 
cate birds are able to find a sufficient supply of inseét food, a congenial resting place 
and safe protection from their enemies. Unseen and unheard by ordinary people they 
pass by on their way to high northern latitudes. They must be sought for, and only 
the friend of nature knows where to look for them. In the Northern States the apple 
and pear trees of the orchards, and the wild plum and crab trees on the woodland 
border are their favorite haunts during the middle of May. In Texas and Florida I 
used to search for them in the flowering magnolias, or on such trees as were over- 
grown with trumpet-vines, the dazzling orange-scarlet flower clusters of which hanging 
down in graceful festoons. Besides many other species of the family, the most richly 
attired BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER was always among them. When I first saw this 
brilliant bird in the flowering magnolias, I thought that nothing could rival the beauty 
of this picture. The delicacy and brilliancy in the orange of the throat, together 
with the chaste whiteness of the flowers, and the dark shining green of the leaves 
made a combination of unsurpassed beauty. Sometimes I observed two or three males 
together in one tree, but more often they migrate singly. Usually they are seen together 
with Magnolia and other Warblers, always frequenting the same localities. In Texas I 
never noticed them before April 20; in south-western Missouri about May 7, in north- 
ern Illinois May 15, and in Wisconsin one or two days later. They are rather rare in 
all these localities, and their stay among the northern woods and orchards is short. In 
the coniferous region of Wisconsin they always show a fondness for pines and hemlocks. 
According to my friend Prof. W. W. Cook, “few lovers of forests and birds cou!d 
fail to notice this brilliantly colored Warbler, should they pass near its favorite haunts.” 
The Blackburnian Warbler breeds from the heavy forests of northern Minnesota and 
Michigan, and probably also Wisconsin, northward. It is a summer resident in New 
England, breeding in suitable localities, but more sparingly in the Alleghanian and 
Carolinian than in the Canadian Fauna, which latter must be regarded as its true 
summer home. Langdon found it the most abundant species of the family in the Chil- 
howee Mountains of eastern Tennessee, “ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 feet and keeping 
mostly in the higher tree tops.’’ Both adults and young were seen together. Dr. W. C. 
Rives Jr. observed it in the mountains of Virginia, and Prof. W. Brewster in the beau- 
tiful mountain region of western North Carolina, where it seems to be abundant. On 
the crest of the Cowee Range, and about Highlands, they were among the most numer- 
ous and most conspicuous woodland birds, frequenting old oak timber interspersed with 
hemlocks, or bordering on hemlock swamps. In these evergreens they were evidently 
breeding, or about to breed, for the males were in full song and paired, and Mr. Brewster 
noticed that each had its particular hemlock which it guarded with jealous care, driving 
away all other small birds which came near it. 
