THE PARULA WARBLER. 
29 
interest arise. By and by we shall know more about the causes 
of the distribution of plants than we do now; and it should be 
the ambition of every member of the Institute to add something 
to the sum of local human knowledge, thus emulating in a small 
way the noble aim of the Smithsonian Institution. 
To sum up in outline what I am driving at, we should acquire 
the habit of looking at all plants in their relations to other 
plants; and not only that, but in their as yet ill understood re¬ 
lations to the mineral and animal worlds. We want to find out 
why certain plants will grow on certain soils, what plants to ex¬ 
pect on a given soil and how change of soil will affect given 
plants. We also want to investigate the relations of plants to 
insects, the agency of insects in their multiplication and their 
distribution. 
All this is to be done right at home in a district very remark¬ 
able for the variety both of its flora and its fauna. The botani¬ 
cal section of the Institute has thus a great opportunity. 
The Parula Warbler. 
BY THEODORA RICHARDSON. 
This little warbler has been very noticeable this year in sev¬ 
eral localities, and I am happy to say that its brightness of 
plumage is still to be seen in two localities near Manchester. 
Chapman tells us that it breeds from the Gulf States north¬ 
ward to Anticosti; winters from Florida southward. 
Its peculiar insect-like song ending with staccato abruptness 
has, when followed up, revealed to me this sweet bit of the 
warbler family. 
For three seasons, this being the third, I have seen him at 
the “Pulpit,” and this year, on June io, I experienced the 
pleasure of hearing him after I felt sure that he had migrated 
northward, for we last saw a number of this species at the same 
spot, Lake Massabesic, on May 12, on “ Observation Day.” 
He was one of twenty-seven kinds seen that day. Bradford 
Torrey in a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly says that ten 
