154 Brewster oji the Prothonotary WarUer. 



the pleasant company of Mr. Kobert Eidgway, with the dehghtful 

 anticipation of a prospective four weeks among the birds of a, to 

 me new region. What ornithologist but has felt the sensations 

 arising at such times, -the pleasing certainty of meeting many 

 species that are known to occur; the stimulating hope of detecting 

 others that may, nay, probably will, be found ; and the vague dream 

 of securing some rare prize that shall excite the interest of the whole 

 ornithological world ^ But most potent of all to encourage and sus- 

 tain are the possibilities, without which the toils and hardships of field 

 collecting would be but sad drudgery. A person of prosaic temper- 

 ament can rarely if ever make a good field-worker. Enthusiasm 

 must be the spur to success. At the time of our arrival there was 

 a temporary lull in the development of the season. March and early 

 April had been unusually warm and pleasant, and vegetation had 

 far advanced. Many of the forest trees were already green with 

 youn<^ foliage, and the leaves of others were beginning to unfold. 

 But a period of cold rainy weather succeeded, and everything for 

 a time was at a stand-still. On April 19 the first Prothonotary 

 Warblers were seen. They seemed to be new arrivals, forerunners 

 of the general migration ; shy, comparatively silent, and with that 

 peculiar restraint of manner observable in the first comers of most 

 mi-ratory birds, - a restraint not so much to be wondered at for a 

 subtile chill and gloom still brooded over the budding forest. Nature 

 seemed to hold her breath in expectancy, and the birds, as well as all 

 wild creatures, are her children, and sympathize in all her varymg 

 moods What lover of the woods has not observed the effect pro- 

 duced upon them by a sudden undefinable something that comes 

 at times over the face of everything, - a slight imperceptible chill 

 perhaps, or a brief period of cloudiness ; where a moment before all 

 was life, bustle, and joyous activity, there is now brooding depres- 

 sion and almost death-like silence. Oftentimes the effect is but 

 transient, and the former state of things soon resumes. 



With a few warm days the change came, and Nature entered upon 

 her gala-day. The tree-tops became canopies of dense foliage ; from 

 the starlit heavens at night came the mysterious lisping voices of 

 numberless little feathered wanderers pushing their way northward 

 amid the darkness, guided by some faculty which must ever remain 

 hidden from mortals. Each succeeding morning found new-comers 

 taking their places in the woodland choir, and every thicket was 

 enlivened by glancing wings and merry bird voices. The spell was 



Brewster on the Prothonotary Warhlcr. 



155 



broken, and among all the gay revellers none were more conspic 

 uous than the beautiful Prothonotaries. Day by day their numbers 

 rapidly increased, until by April 27 all had apparently arrived. 

 We now found the Prothonotary Warbler to be, in all suitable 

 localities, one of the most abundant and characteristic species. 

 Along the shores of the rivers and creeks generally, wherever the 

 black willow {Sdlix niger) grew, a few pairs were sure to be found. 

 Among the button-bushes {Clephalanthus occidentalis) that fringed 

 the margin of the peculiar long narrow ponds scattered at frequent 

 intervals over the heavily timbered bottoms of the Wabash and 

 White Eivers, they also occurred more or less numerously. Potoka 

 Creek, a winding, sluggish stream, thickly fringed with willows, was 

 also a favorite resort ; but the grand rendezvous of the species seemed 

 to be about the shores of certain secluded ponds lying in what is 

 known as the Little Cypress Swamp. Here they congregated in 

 astonishing numbers, and early in May were breeding almost in colo- 

 nies. In the region above indicated two things were found to be 

 essential to their presence, namely, an abundance of willows and 

 the immediate jproximity of water. Thickets of button-bushes did 

 indeed satisfy a few scattered and perhaps not over particular in- 

 dividuals and pairs, but away from water they were almost never 

 seen. So marked was this preference, that the song of the male 

 heard from the woods indicated to us as surely the proximity of 

 some river, pond, or flooded swamp, as did the croaking of frogs or 

 the peep of the Hylas. In rare instances, it is true, nests were found 

 several hundred yards away fi-om any water ; but such apparent ex- 

 ceptions were in nearly every case explained by unmistakable indi- 

 cations that the place, or its immediate vicinity, had been flooded 

 earlier in the season, probably at the time when the site was selected 

 and the nest built. Owing to the exceeding variability of the water- 

 level in the Western rivers, it is not at all improbable that whole 

 tracts of country where these birds breed may be sometimes left 

 high and dry by the receding element before the eggs are hatched. 



Everywhere now, from the willow thickets along the streams and 

 the button-bushes on the pond edges came the songs of numerous 

 males, and occasionally one would appear among the foliage or 

 glance across the open water like a ray of golden light. Little idea 

 can be had from preserved specimens of the wonderful beauty and 

 brilliancy of this bird's plumage when alive. Although at times 

 somewhat hard to discover among the yellowish green of their favor- 



