(_Geothlypis philadelphia._)
Baskett, in his valuable "Story of the Birds," says that the warbler
forms feed variously, but they use little vegetable matter. Some have
ground-haunting, and even swamp-haunting habits; others have fringed
tongues hinting of juices and nectars, while tree-trunk exploring, as
in creepers, nuthatches, titmice, etc., also prevails. They have been
described as at once the most fascinating and the most exasperating of
birds. In the spring they come with a rush and although the woods may
be full of them, only a faint lisp from the tree tops gives note of
their presence, and unless you are a very good observer you will not
know they are about at all. If you listen to other birds, instead of
resolutely devoting yourself to warblers, you will lose the opportunity
of the sight of a diminutive bird disappearing in a tree top. Some of
the warblers dash about among the leaves on the ground hunting for
gnats, others hunt over the branches of the trees, though some of them
hop gaily on the ground, while others walk sedately, bobbing their
heads or tilting their tails. The majority of the tribe fly northward
to nest in pine forests. A few, however, remain and build in our parks,
gardens and shrubbery. They are all insect-eaters, destroying ants,
flies, caterpillars, larvæ, plant lice, canker-worms, and May flies.
They are therefore of great value in the protection of vegetation.
The mourning warbler, whose common name is black-throated ground
warbler, has its habitat in eastern North America, breeding from
northern United States northward; more rare in the Atlantic states.
It winters in south-eastern Mexico, and Costa Rica, and thence south
to Colombia. During the spring migration this bird is very common.
Early in May, 1881, they were found in abundance near wheat lands in
Indiana, most of them being observed about brush piles in a clearing,
and along fences in the immediate vicinity. In the early part of June,
1871, a pair were seen in a thicket along the border of Fox Prairie,
in Richland Co., Illinois, and it was presumed at the time that they
were breeding there, but they may have been merely late migrants. It is
known to breed in mountainous portions of Pennsylvania, New England,
New York, Michigan, Minnesota, and eastern Nebraska, northward. It
has been found nesting in Illinois south of latitude 39. Its nest is
built on or near the ground in woods. One discovered by Burroughs in
the state of New York was built in ferns about a foot from the ground,
on the edge of a hemlock wood. It contained three eggs. The nests are
usually composed of fine strips of bark and other fibrous material,
lined with fine hair. The eggs are white, with a sprinkling of reddish
dots near the larger ends.
* * * * *
The feeling that all life is one life slumbers in the child's
soul. Only very gradually, however, can this slumbering feeling be
transfigured into a waking consciousness. Slowly, through a sympathetic
study of nature and of human life, through a growing sense of the soul
and meaning of all natural facts and of all human relationships,
and through recreating in various forms that external world which is
but the objective expression of his own inmost being, the individual
attains to a consciousness and unity of life and to a vision of the
Eternal Fountain of Life.--_The Nest._