Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 



Migrations— }A2Ly. September. Summer resident. More com- 

 monly a migrant only. 



This is the most yellow of the small flycatchers and the only 

 Eastern species with a yellow instead of a white throat. Without 

 hearing its call-note, " pse-eh-pse-ek," which it abruptly sneezes 

 rather than utters, it is quite impossible, as it darts among the 

 trees, to tell it from the Acadian flycatcher, with which even 

 Audubon confounded it. Both these little birds choose the same 

 sort of retreats — well-timbered woods near a stream that attracts 

 myriads of insects to its spongy shores — and both are rather shy 

 and solitary. The yellow-bellied species has a far more northerly 

 range, however, than its Southern relative or even the small 

 green-crested flycatcher. It is rare in the Middle States, not 

 common even in New England, except in the migrations, but 

 from the Canada border northward its soft, plaintive whistle, 

 which is its love-song, may be heard in every forest where it 

 nests. All the flycatchers seem to make a noise with so much 

 struggle, such convulsive jerkings of head and tail, and flutterings 

 of the wings that, considering the scanty success of their musical 

 attempts, it is surprising they try to lift their voices at all when 

 the effort almost literally lifts them off their feet. 



While this little flycatcher is no less erratic than its Acadian 

 cousin, its nest is never slovenly. One couple had their home in 

 a wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania ; a Virginia creeper in New 

 Jersey supported another cradle that was fully twenty feet above 

 the ground ; but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen 

 breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said to be invariably placed 

 either in the moss by the brookside or in some old stump, should 

 the locality be too swampy. 



Black-throated Green Warbler 



(Dendroica virens) Wood Warbler family 



Length — 5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English sparrow. 



Male — Back and crown of head bright yellowish olive-green. 

 Forehead, band over eye, cheeks, and sides of neck rich 

 yellow. Throat, upper breast, and stripe along sides black. 

 Underneath yellowish white. Wings and tail brownish 

 olive, the former with two white bars, the latter with much 



184 



