66 BIRDS 



Female — Similar; but reddish-brown streakings less dis- 

 tinct. 



Range — ^North America, except Southwestern states, 

 where the prothonotary warbler reigns in its stead. 

 Nests from Gulf states to fur countries. Winters 

 south of the Gulf states, as far as northern parts of 

 South America. 



Migrations — ^May. September. Common summer resi- 

 dent. 



Rather than live where the skies are gray and the air is 

 cold, this adventurous httle warbler, or summer yellow- 

 bird as he is often called, will travel two thousand miles or 

 more to follow the sun. A trip from Panama to Canada 

 and back again within five months does not appal him. By 

 living in perpetual sunshine his feathers seemed to have 

 absorbed some of it, so that he looks like a stray sunbeam 

 playing among the shrubbery on the lawn, the trees in the 

 orchard, the bushes in the roadside thicket, the willows and 

 alders beside the stream. Although you may not get close 

 enough to see that his yellow breast is finely streaked with 

 reddish brown, you may know by these marks that he is 

 not what you at first suspected he was — ^somebody's pet 

 canary escaped from a cage. 



Is there anybody living who could name at sight every 

 one of the seventy warblers old and young, male and fe- 

 male, that visit the United States? Some of these birds, 

 peculiarly American, are very gaily colored and exquisitely 

 marked, as birds coming to us from the tropics have a right 

 to be. Some are quietly clad; some, like the redstart, are 

 dressed quite differently from their mates and yoimg; 

 ©thers, like the yellow warbler, are so nearly alike that one 



