BY THE WAYSIDE 
63 
SCHOOL BRANCH DEPARTMENT 
Every Wisconsin School Branch is required to subscribe for at least one copy of BY THE WAYSIDE 
Letters to this department should be 
written on only one side of the page, should 
give name, age and address of the writer and 
should be mailed by the first of the month; 
Illinois writers sending to Miss Mary Drum¬ 
mond, Spring Lane, Lake Forest, Ill., and 
Wisconsin writers to Mr. Roland E. Krcmers, 
Madison, Wis. To each writer whose letter 
is published will be sent an illustrated leaf¬ 
let on some bird. For the best letter each 
month we will send a second leaflet. Pre¬ 
ference will be given to letters about the 
bird study for the month and to original 
observations. 
Any Wisconsin society may, by paying 
the express, have the use of the Gordon and 
Merrill Libraries of bird books by applying 
to Mr. Kremers. 
A set of colored bird slides with a type¬ 
written lecture may be rented from Roland 
E. Kremers, 1720 Vilas Street, Madison, 
Wis. Illinois Schools may use, without ex¬ 
pense, a library or a lecture with lantern 
slides, by applying to Miss Bunnel, Academy 
of Sciences, Chicago. 
i_ 
The Yellow Warbler 
j Should you ever lose track of the 
season, and, having no calendar at 
hand, wish to know when May arrived, 
don't worry. Just watch for the Yel- 
j low Warbler, the Summer Yellowbird. 
When he arrives you know that May 
has reached Wisconsin. 
tk A yellow bird.” so Chapman says 
j in his delightful book on the War¬ 
blers; and that is all that is necessary. 
For with us he is undoubtedly the yel¬ 
low bird. Yellow all over, though 
somewhat duller above, the male with 
abundant chestnut streaks upon the 
breast, and with the tail blackish. His 
i wife, as is the common case with birds, 
I is somewhat less gaudily attired. You 
can not well mistake them for any¬ 
thing else. 
Most of the warblers are with us but 
! a few days in spring, and then again in 
»# 
i fall, choosing to spend their summer 
in the northern wilds, their winter in 
the tropics. 1 do not blame them; our 
climate has some disadvantages. But 
little cares the Yellow Warbler. When 
he comes he comes to rear his famiy 
of four or five, leaving us again, like 
most summer resorters, in September. 
Neither is lie an exclusive aristocrat, 
like his relatives that seek the big 
woods to hide their nests. He has 
long ago learned that but little danger 
lurks among the haunts of men, and 
confidingly he comes and builds his 
nest in apple or shade tree, in the rose 
hedge, or the bushy thickets of the 
park. 
Of course he has his troubles. The 
cowbird, lazy beggar, has chosen him 
as one of his favorite victims. Some 
day Mr. and Mrs. Yellow come home 
and find a single egg. big and strongly 
streaked with brown, for which they 
certainly are not responsible. Dis¬ 
couraged! Not a bit. They simply 
go to work and build a new nest on 
top of the old one. and leave the 
would-be adopted egg deeply buried. 
Four nests in succession have Yellow- 
birds been known to build thus get¬ 
ting well rid of three intruding eggs. 
The Yellow Warbler is found in 
summer in most parts of the Hinted 
States and Canada; in winter it trav¬ 
els as far south as Brazil and Peru. 
Its song is a merry “chee-wee, chee- 
wee,” forcible, but smooth and pleas¬ 
ing. It sings without an interval, long 
after other birds, busy with household 
cares, have quieted down, until Au¬ 
gust. 
Its nest is a well-built structure of 
hemp fibers, and fine grasses, softly 
lined with down of plants. In this it 
lays four or live eggs, usually greenish 
white, speckled and blotched with pur- 
