Conspicuously Yellow and Orange 
more variation than most warblers’ music, has been translated 
“‘Che-we-eo-tsip, tsip, che-we-eo,’’ again interpreted by Mr. Chap- 
man as ‘‘ You must come to the woods, or you won’t see me.” 
Kentucky Warbler 
(Geothlypis formosa) Wood Warbler family 
Length—5.5 inches. Nearly an inch shorter than the English 
sparrow. 
Male—Upper parts olive-green; under parts yellow; a yellow 
line from the bill passes over and around the eye. Crown 
of head, patch below the eye, and line defining throat, black. 
Female—Similar, but paler, and with grayish instead of black 
markings. 
Range—United States eastward from the Rockies, and from Iowa 
and Connecticut to Central America, where it winters. 
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident. 
No bird is common at the extreme limits of its range, and so 
this warbler has a reputation for rarity among the New England 
ornithologists that would surprise people in the middle South and 
Southwest. After all that may be said in the books, a bird is 
either common or rare to the individual who may or may not 
have happened to become acquainted with it in any part of its 
chosen territory. Plenty of people in Kentucky, where we might 
judge from its name this bird is supposed to be most numerous, 
have never seen or heard of it, while a student on the Hudson 
River, within sight of New York, knows it intimately. It also 
nests regularly in certain parts of the Connecticut Valley. ‘*‘ Who 
is my neighbor P” is often a question difficult indeed to answer 
where birds are concerned. In the chapter, ‘‘ Spring at the Cap- 
ital,” which, with every reading of ‘‘ Wake Robin,” inspires the 
bird-lover with fresh zeal, Mr. Burroughs writes of the Kentucky 
warbler: ‘‘I] meet with him in low, damp places, in the woods, 
usually on the steep sides of some little run. I 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 charac- 
teristic 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.” 
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