UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
winged warbler — a shy bird, that eluded me a 
long time in an old clearing that had grown up with 
low bushes. The song first attracted my attention, 
it is so like in form to that of the black-throated 
green-back, but in quality so inferior. The first dis- 
tant glimpse of the bird, too, suggested the green- 
back, so for a time I deceived myself with the notion 
that it was the green-back with some defect in its 
vocal organs. A day or two later I heard two of 
them, and then concluded my inference was a hasty 
one. Following one of the birds up, I caught sight of 
its yellow crown, which is much more conspicuous 
than its yellow wing-bars. Its song is like this, ’n-’n 
de de de, with a peculiar reedy quality, but not at all 
musical, falling far short of the clear, sweet, lyrical 
song of the green-back. Nehrling sees in it a resem- 
blance to that of the Maryland yellow-throat, but 
I fail to see any resemblance whatever. 
One appreciates how bright and gay the plumage 
of many of our warblers is when he sees one of them 
alight upon the ground. While passing along a wood 
road in June, a male black-throated green came 
down out of the hemlocks and sat for a moment on 
the ground before me. How out of place he looked, 
like a bit of ribbon or millinery just dropped there! 
The throat of this warbler always suggests the finest 
black velvet. Not long after I saw the chestnut- 
sided warbler do the same thing. We were trying 
to make it out in a tree by the roadside, when it 
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