Warbler

an American family of small woodland songsters. Some seventy species nest in the United States and Canada. There are about 155 species in the two Americas. Some idea of the diversity of color may be had from an enumeration of the colors prevailing on the backs of various species: greenish yellow, olive, olive green, bluish gray, grayish blue, blue, black, black and white, yellow, and ashy. Each describable spot of the warbler's plumage, as crown, throat, breast, wing, and tail, requires a similar and even longer list of colors for the different species, but olive colors predominate. Some warblers flit about with a quick wing in the tree-tops, snatching insects from twigs and leaves; others dash after insects on the wing like a flycatcher; others again search the bark of trees patiently like vireos and creepers. Among the noticeable species that pass northward in the springtime to summer homes in Canada are the yellow warbler with olive tinged back; the gray myrtle warbler with black sides and yellow crown; blackburnian warblers with flaming orange throat; and many others to which the best guide is a copy of Chapman's Manual and a file of Bird Lore. The volume of the latter for 1910 contains a series of colored plates invaluable to the student of this difficult family of birds.