Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 
Migrations — May. September. Summer resident. More com- 
monly a migrant only. 
This is the most yellow of the small flycatchers and the only 
Eastern species with a yellow instead of a white throat. Without 
hearing its call-note, “ pse-ek-pse-ek,” which it abruptly sneezes 
rather than utters, it is quite impossible, as it darts among the 
trees, to tell it from the Acadian flycatcher, with which even 
Audubon confounded it. Both these little birds choose the same 
sort of retreats — well-timbered woods near a stream that attracts 
myriads of insects to its spongy shores — and both are rather shy 
and solitary. The yellow-bellied species has a far more northerly 
range, however, than its Southern relative or even the small 
green-crested flycatcher. It is rare in the Middle States, not 
common even in New England, except in the migrations, but 
from the Canada border northward its soft, plaintive whistle, 
which is its love-song, may be heard in every forest where it 
nests. All the flycatchers seem to make a noise with so much 
struggle, such convulsive jerkings of head and tail, and flutterings 
of the wings that, considering the scanty success of their musical 
attempts, it is surprising they try to lift their voices at all when 
the effort almost literally lifts them off their feet. 
While this little flycatcher is no less erratic than its Acadian 
cousin, its nest is never slovenly. One couple had their home in 
a wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania ; a Virginia creeper in New 
Jersey supported another cradle that was fully twenty feet above 
the ground ; but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen 
breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said to be invariably placed 
either in the moss by the brookside or in some old stump, should 
the locality be too swampy. 
Black-throated Green Warbler 
(Dendroica virens ) Wood Warbler family 
Length — 5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English sparrow. 
Male — Back and crown of head bright yellowish olive-green. 
Forehead, band over eye, cheeks, and sides of neck rich 
yellow. Throat, upper breast, and stripe along sides black. 
Underneath yellowish white. Wings and tail brownish 
olive, the former with two white bars, the latter with much 
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