SPRING AT THE CAPITAL 149 
lowest spice-bush, so urgent is the demand for food 
during their long northern journeys. At night 
they are up and away. Some varieties, as the blue 
yellow-back, the chestnut-sided, and the Blackbur- 
nian, during their brief stay, sing nearly as freely 
as in their breeding-haunts. For two or three 
years I have chanced to meet little companies of 
the bay-breasted warbler, searching for food in an 
oak wood on an elevated piece of ground. They 
kept well up among the branches, were rather slow 
in their movements, and evidently disposed to tarry 
but a short time. 
The summer residents here, belonging to this 
class of birds, are few. I have observed the black 
and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler, 
the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat- 
catcher, breeding near Rock Creek. —_ 
Of these the Kentucky warbler is by far the most 
interesting, though quite rare. I meet with him in 
low, damp places in the woods, usually on the steep 
sides of some little run. TI hear at intervals a clear, 
strong, bell-like whistle or warble, and presently 
catch a glimpse of the bird as he jumps up from the 
ground to take an insect or worm from the under 
side of a leaf. This is his characteristic movement. 
He belongs to the class of ground warblers, and his 
range is very low, indeed lower than that of any 
other species with which I am acquainted. He is 
on the ground nearly all the time, moving rapidly 
along, taking spiders and bugs, overturning leaves, 
peeping under sticks and into crevices and every 
