Family Mniotiltide
WOOD WARBLERS.
The Wood Warblers are found only in America, and are most numerously represented in eastern North America. About one hundred species are known, of which seventy visit the United States, while the remaining thirty are tropical.
With three or four exceptions they are inhabitants of woodland, but during their migrations may be found in the trees of lawns or orchards. They feed almost exclusively upon insects, and are thus highly migratory, thousands of miles frequently separating their summer and winter homes. The majority are among the last of the spring arrivals; their coming caps the climax of the migration, and the first severe frost leaves but few with us. They migrate by night, and are chief among the victims of lighthouses and electric-light towers. When migrating, they are generally found in straggling companies composed of a number of species, which during the day travel slowly through the woods from tree to tree.
They capture their insect food in a variety of ways. Some species flit actively from branch to branch, taking their prey from the more exposed parts of the twigs and leaves; others are gleaners, and carefully explore the under surfaces of leaves or crevices in the bark; while several, like Flycatchers, capture a large part of their food on the wing. As a rule, they are arboreal, but many are thicket-haunting, and some are terrestrial. WOOD WARBLERS.
Several species have remarkable vocal ability, but, generally speaking, they have rather weak voices, and take low rank as songsters. Warblers are at once the delight and the despair of field students. To the uninitiated their existence is unknown, and when search reveals the before unsuspected fact that our woods are thronged with birds as exquisitely colored as the daintiest tropical forms, we feel as though a new world were opened to us.
Absent to-day, present to-morrow, the Warblers come and go under cover of the night, and we may give a lifetime to their study, and then know we have not mastered the laws which govern their movements. Entering an apparently deserted bit of woods, we hear faint voices, lisping tseeps, and soon discover that the tree tops are animated with flitting forms. What limitless possibilities there are in a flock of Warblers! Who can say what rare species may be among them?-perhaps the bird we have long vainly looked for; perhaps a stranger from another clime!
KEY TO THE SPECIES.
First Group.-Throat yellow, yellowish, or orange.
I. Under parts without streaks or spots.
II. With black or brown streaks on the breast or sides, or (in one species) a blackish brown band across the throat, or (in one species) a black patch on the breast.