THE WARBLERS AND THE VIREOS. 115 



New England winter when its congeners are basking in the 

 sunshine of the South. It is distributed over a large North 

 American range, and is abundant in all sorts of situations, 

 especially during the spring and autumn migrations. It 

 breeds regularly- in the far North, commonly nesting, how- 

 ever, in the northern tier of States and in southern Canada. 

 According to Ridgway, it is a common Avinter resident in 

 southern Illinois. Of twenty-one specimens studied by King, 

 " one had eaten a moth ; two, twenty-one caterpillars, mostly 

 measuring worms ; five, fourteen two-winged flies, among 

 which were three crane-flies ; fifteen, forty-eight beetles ; one, 

 four ichneumon-flies ; one, a caddis-fly ; and one, a spider." 

 Our own studies * of many specimens show that in autumn 

 three-fifths of its food consists of myrtle-berries, the remainder 

 being largely insects, while in spring the insect ratios are 

 much greater. 



The Yellow Warbler, or Summer Yellow-Bird, is probably 

 the best-known member of its family. It seems perfectly at 

 home throughout the whole of North America, from the trop- 

 ical regions of the South to the arctic lands of the North. It 

 is a familiar and confiding bird, associating freely with civilized 

 man, and building its neat nest of vegetable fibre in the trees 

 of the orchard, park, family residence, and public thorough- 

 fare. Three or four eggs are usually deposited in the nest, 

 and when an additional one is left by a skulking cow-bird, 

 the warblers — with a wisdom beyond their size — sometimes 

 add another story to the nest and begin again their domestic 

 duties, leaving the stranger egg and if necessary some of their 

 own to go unhatched. 



. The food habits of the yellow warbler are all that could be 

 desired. It freely visits farm premises and feeds on minute 

 insects of many kinds. Two-thirds of the food of five Illinois 



•Dearborn and Weed, Tech. Bulletin No. 3, N. H. C. Exp. St., Food 

 of the Myrtle-Warbler. 



