68 BIRDS 



houses and electric light towers which especially fascinate 

 these poor Httle victims. 



Who first misled us by calling these birds warblers? 

 The truth is there is not one really fine singer, like a thrush, 

 in the whole family. The yellow-breasted chat has re- 

 markable vocal ability, but he is not a real musician like 

 the mocking-bird. The warblers, as a rule, have weak, 

 squeaky, or wiry songs and hsping tsee'p call notes. The 

 yellow warbler sings as acceptably as most of his kin. 

 Seven times he rapidly repeats: "Sweet — sweet — sweet — 

 sweet — sweet — sweeter-sweeter" to his sweetheart, but this 

 happy httle love-maker's incessant song is apt to become al- 

 most tiresome to everybody except his mate. 



What a clever Kttle creature she is! More than any 

 other bird she suffers from the persecutions of that dusky 

 rascal, the cowbird. In May, with much help from her 

 mate, she builds an exquisite httle cradle of silvery plant 

 fibre, usually shreds of milkweed stalk, grass, leaves, and 

 caterpillars' silk, neatly lined with hair, feathers, and the 

 downy felt of fern fronds. The cradle is sometimes placed 

 in the crotch of an elder bush, sometimes in a willow tree; 

 preferably near water where insects are abimdant, but 

 often in a terminal branch of some orchard tree. 



Scarcely is it finished before the skulking cowbird 

 watches her chance to lay an egg in it that she may not be 

 bothered with the care of her own baby. She knows that 

 the yellow warbler is a gentle, amiable, devoted mother, 

 who will probably work herself to death, if necessary, 

 rather than let the big baby cowbird starve. But she 

 sometimes makes a great mistake in her individual. Not 

 all yeUow warblers will permit the outrage. They prefer 

 to weave a new bottom to their nest, over the cowbird's 



