232 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
yellow palm warbler, who has a maroon-colored head, 
a yellow breast, and twitches his tail like a water 
thrush. Another new song was the “‘Swee, swee, swee”’ 
of the bay-breasted warbler, who wears a rich sombre 
suit of black and bay. Over on the shore we heard 
the plaintive piping of the brownish-gray-and- 
white piping plover, who ran ahead of us and was 
hard to see against the sand. Right beside my foot 
I found one of the nests, a little hollow in the warm 
sand, lined with broken shells, containing four eggs, 
the color of wet sand all spotted with black and gray. 
All through the woods we heard a strange wild, 
ringing song much like that of the Carolina wren. 
““Chick-a-ree, chick-a-ree, chick-a-ree, chick” it 
sounded. Then between the songs the bird sang 
another like a rippling laugh, and then for variety 
had a note which went ‘“‘Chu, chu, chu”’ like a fish- 
hawk. It was some time before we found that these 
three songs all came from the same bird, and it was 
much longer before we learned the singer’s name. 
For days and days we searched the woods without a 
glimpse of him. We found at last that he was none 
other than the ruby-crowned kinglet, that tiny 
bird with a concealed patch of flame-colored feathers 
on the top of his head, who sings so brilliantly as he 
passes through the Eastern states in the spring. 
Not once during that week did we hear the intricate 
warble which is the kinglet’s spring song. Evidently 
this talented performer has a different repertoire for 
his home engagement from that which he uses while 
on the road. 
