(_Dendroica virens_) Wood Warbler family
_Length_--5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.
_Male_--Back and crown of head bright yellowish olive-green.
Forehead, band over eye, cheeks, and sides of neck rich
yellow. Throat, upper breast, and stripe along sides black.
Underneath yellowish white. Wings and tail brownish olive, the
former with two white bars, the latter with much white in
outer quills. In autumn, plumage resembling the female's.
_Female_--Similar; chin yellowish; throat and breast dusky,
the black being mixed with yellowish.
_Range_--Eastern North America, from Hudson Bay to Central
America and Mexico. Nests north of Illinois and New York.
Winters in tropics.
_Migrations_--May. October. Common summer resident north of
New Jersey.
There can be little difficulty in naming a bird so brilliantly and
distinctly marked as this green, gold, and black warbler, that lifts
up a few pure, sweet, tender notes, loud enough to attract attention
when he visits the garden. "_See-see, see-saw_," he sings, but there
is a tone of anxiety betrayed in the simple, sylvan strain that always
seems as if the bird needed reassuring, possibly due to the rising
inflection, like an interrogative, of the last notes.
However abundant about our homes during the migrations, this warbler,
true to the family instinct, retreats to the woods to nest--not always
so far away as Canada, the nesting ground of most warblers, for in
many Northern States the bird is commonly found throughout the summer.
Doubtless it prefers tall evergreen trees for its mossy, grassy nest;
but it is not always particular, so that the tree be a tall one with a
convenient fork in an upper branch.
Early in September increased numbers emerge from the woods, the
plumage of the male being less brilliant than when we saw it last, as
if the family cares of the summer had proved too taxing. For nearly a
month longer they hunt incessantly, with much flitting about the
leaves and twigs at the ends of branches in the shrubbery and
evergreens, for the tiny insects that the warblers must devour by the
million during their all too brief visit.
[Illustration: RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD]
[Illustration: GOLDEN- AND RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS]