PRAIRIE WARBLER. 
Dendroica discolor Batrp. 
PuaTE XIII. Fic. 2. 
Z\=>HE Prairie WARBLER, a very richly attired bird, one of the smallest and most 
e active of the Dendroica-group, is distributed over the eastern portion of the United 
States, north to southern New England and sparingly to southern Wisconsin and Michi- 
gan, west to Kansas and Nebraska. It winters in Florida and more numerously in the 
West Indies. Most abundant it appears to be in the Atlantic States from Georgia to 
New Jersey, preferring for its haunts wild and rocky localities. Mr. E. B. Coues found 
it very numerous along the Potomac near Washington; Dr. Gerhardt reports it a 
common bird in the mountain regions of northern Georgia, and I observed it in the 
Ozark region of south-western Missouri in rocky places, old neglected clearings, pastures 
and the wildwoods, where large trees were very scarce, but where thickets of hazel, 
blackberry and goose-berry shrubs, white thorns, wild plums, patches of cedar and 
snow-berry bushes predominated. Cardinal Redbirds, Chats, Indigobirds, and Blue Gros- 
beaks, but particularly Wood Sparrows (Spizella pusilla) were always found abundantly 
in the same localities. Being one of the most shy and retiring of Warblers, it is not 
easy to observe it. I was familiar with its very quaint and characteristic song long 
before I had seen the bird. These notes it usually utters while snugly concealed among 
the vine-embowered small trees or in the tangled thickets. The bird would pass unno- 
ticed were it not for this sprightly strain, and for its habits of incessantly darting into 
the air to capture passing inse¢éts. Near Freistatt, Mo., it arrived always during the 
last days of April. It never entered, like its congeners, the blooming orchards and 
the gardens. 
The name Prairie Warbler, given to this bird by Wilson in the early part of the 
present century, is very inappropriate, as it rarely or never is seen on prairies. Pasture 
Warbler or Wildwood Warbler would be more to the point. The wildwood is its real 
home. Here its song is heard from the time of its arrival throughout the month of 
June. Its lay is not remarkable for mellowness and beauty, but rather for sharpness 
and peculiarity, beginning low and gradually growing louder, resembling the syllables 
wee-wee-chee-chee-chee-chee. ‘The song cannot fail to attract the attention of every 
friend of nature wherever he happens to hear it. Mr. Elliott Baird Coues gives an 
excellent description of the nesting of the Prairie Warbler in the vicinity of Washington, 
D. C., in “The Auk” (Vol. V, 1888, pp. 405—408), 
Although common throughout the District of Columbia, this beautiful little bird 
nests more abundantly in certain suitable localities than in others. Mr. Coues found it 
breeding within a small area, along the Potomac on the Virginia side, about seven miles 
from the city, in great numbers, perhaps more than fifty pairs. This was among some 
