The Lucy Warbler 



cious cadence, but not being so sharply piercing. Again its breathless, 

 haphazard quality suggests one of the Buntings; and I once followed its 

 tantalizing seductions for half an hour under the delusion that I was on 

 the track of the coveted Beautiful Bunting (Passerina versicolor pulchra). 



The Lucy Warbler has also an emphatic, vibrant chup note, — an 

 alarm which one hears a hundred times, to once that he catches sight of 

 the gray wood sprite himself. 



These birds take mighty good care not to be caught on or near their 

 nests ; and in an experience of some forty nestings, I do not remember to 

 have flushed a parent bird above twice. Even after the nest is discovered, 

 rifled even, the wary midgets seldom venture nearer than a neighboring 

 tree, and then they are content to voice their displeasure in futile chups 

 at long range. 



The reason for the bird's attachment to mesquite becomes evident at 

 nesting time. The wounded or rent trunk and the shaggy bark of this 

 tree offer abundant hidey holes from which the warbler may select a 

 nesting site. Back of a sprung bark scale, or deep in some cranny, 

 and at heights varying from 18 inches to 25 feet, the warbler hides a 

 dainty cup fabricated of bark-shreds, frayed weed-stems, seed-pods, 

 and fine dried grasses. The lining is of macerated bark-pulp, cow-hair, 

 or feathers; and the birds are so careful to secrete their treasure that 

 only rarely does a telltale bit of grass protrude. Unoccupied holes 

 of the Cactus Woodpecker make acceptable sites if shallow enough; 

 and old Verdin nests, especially the smaller "cock nests," are often made 

 use of for the protection they afford. Once our party found a set of 

 the Lucy Warbler eggs accompanied by one of the Dwarf Cowbird, in 

 a re-lined nest of the House Finch. Dwarf Cowbirds are prominent in 

 the formidable host of enemies which this tiny bird must face. Some- 

 times the warblers are able to entrench themselves behind apertures 

 so narrow that the Cowbird cannot get in; and once we saw the Cowbird's 

 foundling resting unharmed, but also harmless, upon the "doorstep," not 

 less than two inches distant from the warbler's eggs. Another nest, more 

 exposed, contained three eggs of the arch enemy, and had been deserted by 

 the troubled owners. The Gila Woodpecker is an especially persistent 

 enemy. Accustomed as he is to poking and prying, he seems to take a 

 fiendish delight in discovering and devouring as many Lucy Warblers' 

 eggs as possible. We caught several of these villains red-handed, and 

 we found reason to believe that more than half of the nests in a certain 

 section had been wrecked by them. Add to these the depredations of 

 lizards, snakes, and, possibly, rats, and the wonder is that these tiny gray 

 waifs are able to reproduce at all. 



While much of the history of the Lucy Warbler is still shrouded in 



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