Identifier: cu31924000070809 (find matches)
Title: Bird studies for home and school; sixty common birds, their habits and haunts
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: De Groat, Herman C
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Buffalo, N. Y., Herman C. De Groat
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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he is quite content if undis-turbed. He is devoted to his mate and her birdlings, oftentwittering in soft tones to them as he leads them into densethickets in search of food. On being approached, he flies frombush to bush, always being just far enough before you to keepwell-concealed in the foliage. If you are near the nest, an oft-repeated chit, pit, quit, will be sounded by him, but if the birdis at some distance from you, you may catch his song whichsome people interpret as, / beseech you, I beseech you, I beseechyou. The color of this bird is so marked and his song sosprightly that he takes a high rank among the summer residents.He is common in the Eastern and Middle States, arriving byMay first and remaining until October fifteenth when he goesto the Gulf States and southward to winter. Like all the otherWarblers he is a friend of the farmer, destroying troublesomeinsects and never doing harm to the products of the fields. Thenest of this bird is often invaded by the Cowbird. 138
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BIRD NOTES 139 AMERICAN REDSTART Male—Upper parts, throat and breast black; bellywhite; sides of breast, part of the wings and tail reddish-orange or flame color. Female—Olive-slate, where male isblack, and dull yellow instead of orange; bill and feet black.Length, five inches. Nest, strips of bark, leaf stems and down compactly woventogether and lined with grass, horse-hair and rootlets. It isfirmly saddled on a limb or wedged in a crotch of a small tree,from five to twenty feet above the ground. Eggs, four to five,dull white, spotted around the larger end with brown or lilac,.65 X .50 inches. This bright, beautiful bird comes north from the tropicsearly in May and returns again in September. Though con-fined to the woods during the mating season, it is often seenabout the orchards and gardens both before and after thatperiod. Sometimes the nest is built in an apple tree near afarm-house. This bird belongs with the Warblers. It lives prin-cipally upon insects which it takes like

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