The gayest, the liveliest, and almost the smallest of our birds are the warblers. Some of them are not over five inches long from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail. Almost all wear bright colors, and the pair are never alike, while the youngsters are different from both.

But few of them warble. Then why are they named so? Well, I haven't found out; but we must call them warblers because that is their name in the books. Most of them have funny little songs of a few notes, which they jerk out every minute as they scramble about on the trees.

We have seventy species of these little birds in the United States, and every one is working as hard as he can from morning till night, for our benefit. For every one eats insects, and enormous numbers of them. Some scramble over trees and pick them out from bud and blossom and under leaves, others go over the bark, and others fly out like flycatchers.

Some of them work in the tops of tall trees, others work in the orchards, some in bushes, and some on the ground. But wherever they live, they are beautiful to look at, and bewitching to study.

Though they are little, they have plenty of spirit. I know of one kept in a room with several other birds, all bigger than himself. You might think he would be treated as big boys would treat a little one. But no, indeed! the tiny fellow made himself ruler of the whole party. He took the biggest bathing-dish, the best seed-cup, and the most desirable perch, and drove away any big bird who dared to claim either.

The Yellow Warbler, found all over the country, is often called the wild canary, for, as you see him fly, he appears to be entirely yellow, but when you get nearer, you will see that on his breast are fine stripes of reddish brown. His mate is all in yellow-olive color.

They are very sweet little creatures, and make one of the prettiest nests in America. It is usually in an upright fork of a tree, or bush. It is made of fine material, among the rest a good deal of a gray silky stuff which gives it a beautiful look.

This bird is one of the few who will not bring up a cowbird baby. When the tiny mother finds a cowbird's egg in her nest, she builds another story on top of the nest, leaving the egg to spoil. Sometimes a cowbird finds the second nest, and then the warbler adds a third story. Nests have been found three stories high, with a dried-up cowbird egg in each of the two lower stories.

A strange thing happened once to a pair of yellow warblers. When the nest was done and the eggs laid, a storm threw it out of place, and tipped it over to one side, so that the little mother did not dare trust it for a cradle. So she built another nest in the same bush, and went to sitting on that.

One day a bird-lover chanced to see the two nests, one with the bird sitting, the other tipped partly over and left with the eggs still in it. To see what the birds would do, he put the fallen nest back in place, and made it firm, and then went away. The little pair looked at the nest, and had a great deal of chatter over it. It was their own nest and their own eggs, but the mother could not sit in two places.

Finally, the singer took his place on the restored nest. After that it was watched, and the two birds sat on the two nests till all the young were hatched, and then fed and reared them. When they were ready to fly, the happy birds had a big family to take care of.

Besides these tiny fellows that we call warblers, there are four bigger birds classed with the family, who do not look or act like warblers. They are the golden-crowned thrush or oven-bird, the water-thrush, the Louisiana water-thrush, and the yellow-breasted chat.

The Oven-bird gets his name from the nest, which is shaped like an old-fashioned oven. It is on the ground in the woods, often on the side of a little slope. It has a roof over it covered with sticks and leaves like the ground around it, so that it is hard to see.

If you were to see this bird walking about on the ground, as he does, you would think him a thrush. He is something the same color, and he has a speckled breast like a thrush. His mate is dressed in the same way, and they have a dull yellowish stripe over the crown.

He is the fellow you hear in the woods, calling "Teacher! teacher! teacher!" He is found all over the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.

The Yellow-breasted Chat is perhaps the drollest bird in North America. He is a beautiful bird, nearly as large as an oriole, olive green above and brilliant yellow below, and his mate is the same. He is found all over the country south of the latitude of Massachusetts. In the West and California, the chat is a little more gray in color, and has a longer tail. He is called the long-tailed chat, but a chat is the same funny fellow, wherever he is found.

He reminds one of a clown, he plays so many antics, and makes such queer sounds, hardly in the least like a song. He will whistle, bark like a puppy, mew like a cat, or laugh like an old man, all in a loud, strange voice.

Besides this, the chat is a ventriloquist, that is, can make his voice appear to come from some place far off, when he is near, and so fool us. The chat has a way of flying up into the air with wings fluttering and legs dangling as if they were not well fastened on, and looking as if he would fall to pieces himself. He does not like to be seen, either. He prefers to hide in a thick bush, and make all sorts of strange noises to deceive one.

The one thing a chat hates more than anything else is to have his nest found. I have known a chat to desert a nest with three lovely eggs in it, just because it was looked at, though neither nest nor eggs were touched.

I found that nest myself, and I wanted very much to see how the birds live and bring up the little ones, so I was careful not to disturb anything. I hid myself a long way off, where I could see the nest with a field-glass, and where I thought the birds would not notice me. I sat there perfectly still for hours, till the eggs had time to get cold, and I saw another bird carry them off. No doubt they saw me, however, for they never came back to the nest.

[9] See Appendix, 8.