68 BLACK-THROATED WARBLER. 



are intermediate between those of many of our Warblers 

 and the Vireos, the notes of which latter it in a great 

 measure assumes. 



It usually makes its appearance in Maryland and 

 New Jersey about the first week in May, when it is 

 observed to be actively engaged in searching for food, 

 regardless^ as it were, of the presence of man. Its 

 -movements when proceeding northward are rapid, and 

 it advances through the woods solitarily, or nearly so, 

 it being seldom that more than two or three are found 

 together at this time, or indeed during the breeding- 

 season, at which period each pair appropriates to itself 

 a certain extent of ground. Its retrograde march is 

 also rapid, and by the middle of October they all seem 

 to have passed beyond the limits of our most southern 

 States. 



The food of this species consists during the summer 

 months of various kinds of flies and caterpillars, many 

 of the former of which it captures by darting after 

 them from its perch, in the manner of Flycatchers and 

 Vireos, emitting, like them also, a clicking sound from 

 its bill. In the autumn it is often seen feeding on 

 small berries of various sorts, in which respect, also, it 

 resembles the birds just mentioned. 



I never found the nest of this bird, of Avhich, however, 

 Mr. Nuttall has given a minute description, which I 

 shall here, with his permission, place before you. — 'Last 

 summer, 1830, on the 8th. of June, I was so fortunate 

 as to find a nest of this species, in a perfectly solitary 

 situation, on the Blue Hills of Milton. The female was 

 sitting, and about to hatch. The nest was in a low, 

 thick, and stunted Virginia juniper. "When I approached 

 near to the nest the female stood motionless on its edge, 

 and peeped down in such a manner that I imagined 



