(_Helminthophila ruficapilla_) Wood Warbler family
_Length_--4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half smaller
than the English sparrow.
_Male_--Olive-green above; yellow underneath. Slate-gray head
and neck. Partially concealed chestnut patch on crown. Wings
and tail olive-brown and without markings.
_Female_--Dull olive and paler, with brownish wash underneath.
_Range_--North America, westward to the plains; north to the
Fur Countries, and south to Central America and Mexico. Nests
north of Illinois and northern New England; winters in
tropics.
_Migrations_--April. September or October.
It must not be thought that this beautiful warbler confines itself to
backyards in the city of Nashville simply because Wilson discovered it
near there and gave it a local name, for the bird's actual range
reaches from the fur trader's camp near Hudson Bay to the adobe
villages of Mexico and Central America, and over two thousand miles
east and west in the United States. It chooses open rather than dense
woods and tree-bordered fields. It seems to have a liking for hemlocks
and pine trees, especially if near a stream that attracts insects to
its shores; and Dr. Warren notes that in Pennsylvania he finds small
flocks of these warblers in the autumn migration, feeding in the
willow trees near little rivers and ponds. Only in the northern parts
of the United States is their nest ever found, for the northern
British provinces are their preferred nesting ground. One seen in the
White Mountains was built on a mossy, rocky ledge, directly on the
ground at the foot of a pine tree, and made of rootlets, moss, needles
from the trees overhead, and several layers of leaves outside, with a
lining of fine grasses that cradled four white, speckled eggs.
Audubon likened the bird's feeble note to the breaking of twigs.