purpose, it picks innumerable small insects from the leaves and twigs. Like a 

 titmouse, it will frequently swing from the underside of a twig or even a leaf in 

 its pursuit of an insect. Though it destroys a large number of the smaller insects, 

 it seems also to have another use for its sharp bill which has brought upon it the 

 enmity of the grower of small fruits. It has been shown by several observers 

 that in the fall it will puncture ripe grapes in order to obtain the sweet juice. 

 Because of this habit it has been called Grape-sucker, and in some vineyards the 

 injury produced by the pretty little green Warbler has been quite serious. Mr. 

 Amos W. Butler says, in his "Birds of Indiana" : "It sometimes eats the fruit 

 of the poison ivy and becomes a distributor of its seed." From the examination 

 of stomachs of several of these Warblers, it is evident that the amount of damage 

 that is done by the puncturing of grapes and the distribution of noxious seeds is 

 greatly overbalanced by the large number of insects, many of which are harmful 

 to vegetation, which they destroy. 



The Tennessee Warbler quite closely resembles both the Nashville and the 

 orange-crowned warblers when young. Mr. Chapman gives the following method 

 of distinguishing the young of the three species : "The Nashville is distinctly 

 yellow on the breast and under tail-coverts ; the orange-crowned is pale greenish 

 yellow, with dusky streaks and yellow under tail-coverts ; the Tennessee is pale 

 greenish yellow, without streaks and with the under tail-coverts white." The 

 adults are easily distinguished. 



Its song is not easily described. By many the song has been likened to that 

 of the Nashville warbler, but Mr. Bradford Torrey says that the two are so 

 decidedly different as never for a moment to be confounded, though the former is 

 suggestive of the latter. The Tennessee's song is certainly much shriller than that 

 of the Nashville Warbler. Mr. Ernest Thompson has described its song as 

 beginning "with a note like chipiti, chipiti, repeated a dozen or more times with 

 increasing rapidity, then suddenly changed to a mere twitter." 



The Tennessee Warbler nests in low bushes or upon the ground, building 

 its home with fine fibers and grasses interwoven with mosses and lined with hair. 



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