Page:Birdcraft-1897.djvu/149

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Warblers
SONG-BIRDS.


Song: Feeble — "Que-ar-Que-ar-Que-ar," a note which Audubon says sounds like the breaking of twigs.

Season: Summer resident, perhaps, from late April to September and October, but only pleutiful as a migrant.

Breeds: From New England northward.

Nest: On the ground, sometimes in mossy banks. Nest made of fibres, pine-needles, etc., with a lining of the softer grasses and hair.

Eggs: 4; blush white (if fresh), thickly speckled.

Range: Eastern North America to the Plains, north to the Fur Countries. Mexico in winter.

This brilliant Warbler is a common summer resident from Massachusetts northward, but I think irregularly so in this part of Connectieut. It visits us freely, however, in May or sometimes the last week in April, and usually appears in greater numbers on its return trip in the fall. They are shy birds, prying about the borders of woodlands, and here, in the fall migration, they haunt a belt of wild hemlocks that border the rocky banks of a stream; Dr. Warren says that in the southward migration in Pennsylvania, they are seen in small parties feeding among the willows along the banks of streams and ponds.

The name "Nashville" was applied to this Warbler by Wilson, who discovered it near Nashville, Tenn., but it is another case of a poor name for a beautiful bird, and, like so many other titles, unsatisfactory in the extreme. The accepted English name of a bird should embody some of its personal attributes, as the Latin title frequently does; ruficapilla, from rufus, red, and capilla, hair, signifies that the bird has red markings on his head. Why is Nashville given as an English equivalent? The American Ornitholo gists' Union has a magnificent chance to show its inventive ability in such cases, and then, perhaps, the Wood Warblers, as a family, may be better known by the masses.

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