150 WAKE-ROBIN 
now and then leaping up eight or ten inches to 
take his game from beneath some overhanging leaf 
or branch. ‘Thus each species has its range more 
or less marked. Draw a line three feet from the 
ground, and you mark the usual limit of the Ken- 
tucky warbler’s quest for food. Six or eight feet 
higher bounds the usual range of such birds as the 
worm-eating warbler, the mourning ground warbler, 
the Maryland yellow-throat. The lower branches 
of the higher growths and the higher branches of 
the lower growths are plainly preferred by the black- 
throated blue-backed warbler, in those localities 
where he is found. The thrushes feed mostly on 
and near the ground, while some of the vireos and 
the true flycatchers explore the highest branches. 
But the warblers, as a rule, are all partial to thick, 
rank undergrowths. 
The Kentucky warbler is a large bird for the 
genus and quite notable in appearance. His back 
is clear olive-green, his throat and breast bright 
yellow. A still more prominent feature is a black 
streak on the side of the face, extending down the 
neck. 
Another familiar bird here, which I never met 
with in the North, is the gnatcatcher, called by 
Audubon the blue-gray flycatching warbler. In 
form and manner it seems almost a duplicate of the 
catbird on a small scale. It mews like a young 
kitten, erects its tail, flirts, droops its wings, goes 
through a variety of motions when disturbed by 
your presence, and in many ways recalls its dusky 
