(_Dendroica castanea_) Wood Warbler family
_Length_--5.25 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the
English sparrow.
_Male_--Crown, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides dull
chestnut. Forehead, sides of head, and cheeks black. Above
olive-gray, streaked with black. Underneath buffy. Two white
wing-bars. Outer tail quills with white patches on tips.
Cream-white patch on either side of neck.
_Female_--Has more greenish-olive above.
_Range_--Eastern North America, from Hudson's Bay to Central
America. Nests north of the United States. Winters in tropical
limit of range.
_Migrations_--May. September. Rare migrant.
The chestnut breast of this capricious little visitor makes him look
like a diminutive robin. In spring, when these warblers are said to
take a more easterly route than the one they choose in autumn to
return by to Central America, they may be so suddenly abundant that
the fresh green trees and shrubbery of the garden will contain a dozen
of the busy little hunters. Another season they may pass northward
either by another route or leave your garden unvisited; and perhaps
the people in the very next town may be counting your rare bird
common, while it is simply perverse.
Whether common or rare, before your acquaintance has had time to ripen
into friendship, away go the freaky little creatures to nest in the
tree-tops of the Canadian coniferous forests.