Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 
Examine the spot more carefully, and on one side you find an 
opening, and within the ball of earth, softly lined with grass, lie 
four or five cream-white, speckled eggs. It is only by a happy 
accident that this nest of the ovenbird is discovered. The con- 
cealment could not be better. It is this peculiarity of nest con- 
struction — in shape like a Dutch oven — that has given the bird 
what DeKay considers its “trivial name.” Not far from the nest 
the parent birds scratch about in the leaves, like diminutive barn- 
yard fowls, for the grubs and insects hiding under them. But at 
the first suspicion of an intruder their alarm becomes pitiful. 
Panic-stricken, they become fairly limp with fear, and drooping 
her wings and tail, the mother-bird drags herself hither and 
thither over the ground. 
As utterly bewildered as his mate, the male darts, flies, and 
tumbles about through the low branches, jerking and wagging 
his tail in nervous spasms until you have beaten a double-quick 
retreat. 
In nesting time, at evening, a very few have heard the “ lux- 
urious nuptial song” of the ovenbird; but it is a song to haunt 
the memory forever afterward. Burroughs appears to be the 
first writer to record this “rare bit of bird melody.” “ Mounting 
by easy flight to the top of the tallest tree,” says the author of 
“ Wake-Robin,” “the ovenbird launches into the air with a sort 
of suspended, hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and 
bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song — clear, ringing, copious, 
rivalling the goldfinch’s in vivacity and the linnet’s in melody.” 
Worm-eating Warbler 
( Helmintherus vermivorus) Wood Warbler family 
Length —5. 50 inches. Less than an inch shorter than the English 
sparrow. 
Male and Female — Greenish olive above. Head yellowish brown, 
with two black stripes through crown to the nape; also 
black lines from the eyes to neck. Under parts buffy and 
white. 
Range — Eastern parts of United States. Nests as far north as 
southern Illinois and southern Connecticut. Winters in the 
Gulf States and southward. 
Migrations — May. September. Summer resident. 
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