256 MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT. 
their summer home. In New England it seems to depart later’ than in the Mississippi 
valley. According to Mr. Stearns, it lingers late amid the rustling of dry and brittle 
underwood and the rasping of withered reeds; it is generally November before its final 
departure for the South, though a few remain after September, except in favored southern 
localities. 
Though common in all low and bushy localities, the Maryland Yellow-throat is 
not so well known and appreciated as it deserves to be. It always keeps among the 
low vegetation, never mounting high shrubs or trees. Wild lands, where the large trees 
were cut down and which are now overgrown with briers, vines, low bushes, and rank 
weeds and grasses, it prefers to open or cultivated grounds. It also shuns the gloomy 
interior of woods and swamps. On high lands I have rarely met with this pretty and 
lively little creature, but on low lands near a rivulet, a brook, a spring, or a small lake 
I always found it in more or less abundance. Its food consists exclusively of insects 
which live on or near the ground. All the Warblers are of great service to man, but 
the mode of life of the terrestrial species exposes them, especially near houses, to destruc- 
tion by prowling cats. 
_During the winter time I have frequently observed this bird in and near Houston, 
Texas. In the dense shrubs of the gardens, such as gardenias or Cape jasmines, roses, 
myrtles, bottle-brush shrubs’, and ivy they find food and shelter. They were especially 
common near the Buffalo and White Oak Bayous among the hollies, smilax, and other 
evergreens. In Florida I observed them among the dense saw’, dwarf*, and blue palmet- 
tos’, huckleberry bushes, and other low shrubs in great abundance during the winter 
months. In their winter home they are exceedingly quiet and shy, not allowing the 
observer to advance too near. I observed the Yellow-throat also during the summer in 
south-eastern Texas in grassy localities with thickets interspersed. On a farm near 
Houston, in a wet piece of land containing about two acres, I found three pairs breeding. 
A ditch runs through this place, and the whole ground was covered with high broom- 
grass’, brier patches, thickets of water oak, overgrown with trumpet creeper, poison ivy, 
grape vines, Carolina jasmine, and smilax. The field was surrounded by an almost 
impenetrable hedge of Cherokee roses. Here the Yellow-throats sojourned with Kentucky 
Warblers, White-eyed Vireos, Yellow-throated Vireos, Nonpareils, Chats, Mockingbirds, 
Cardinals, and Blue Grosbeaks, all living in harmony and peace. Two broods were 
raised annually in this latitude. In almost every nest of this species, and also in almost 
all the nests of other birds, eggs of the Cowbird were found. 
In Wisconsin nest-building begins about June 1. The structure is snugly hidden 
under a dense fern, a small bush, or a tussock of grass, and is exceedingly difficult to find. 
Sometimes it is roofed over like the nest of the Ovenbird, but usually it is open like that 
of the Kentucky Warbler. It is built of dry grasses, leaves, bark-strips, and is lined with 
finer bark-strips and sometimes with hair. Like almost all ground-nests, it is not 
remarkable for elegance. The male sings in the vicinity of the nest and even collects 
food for the female during incubation. When the young are hatched it assists the female 
in collecting insects for them. The structure is always hidden in a secluded spot. The 
birds ‘“‘rely upon concealment for the protection of their nest and rarely show any open 
1 Melaleuca and Metrosideros, 2 Sabal serrulata, 3 §. Adansonii, 4 Chamaerops Hystrix. % Andropogon. macrurus. 
