gleaning as they go; the hardier males, in full song and plumage, lead
the way for the weaker females and yearlings. With tireless industry
do the warblers befriend the human race; their unconscious zeal plays
due part in the nice adjustment of nature's forces, helping to bring
about the balance of vegetable and insect life without which
agriculture would be in vain. They visit the orchard when the apple
and pear, the peach, plum, and cherry are in bloom, seeming to revel
carelessly amid the sweet-scented and delicately-tinted blossoms, but
never faltering in their good work. They peer into the crevices of the
bark, scrutinize each leaf, and explore the very heart of the buds, to
detect, drag forth, and destroy those tiny creatures, singly
insignificant, collectively a scourge, which prey upon the hopes of
the fruit-grower, and which, if undisturbed, would bring his care to
naught. Some warblers flit incessantly in the terminal foliage of the
tallest trees; others hug close to the scored trunks and gnarled
boughs of the forest kings; some peep from the thicket, coppice, the
impenetrable mantle of shrubbery that decks tiny water-courses,
playing at hide-and-seek with all comers; others more humble still,
descend to the ground, where they glide with pretty mincing steps and
affected turning of the head this way and that, their delicate
flesh-tinted feet just stirring the layer of withered leaves with
which a past season carpeted the ground. We may seek warblers
everywhere in the season; we shall find them a continued surprise; all
mood and circumstance is theirs."

[5] Key to North American Birds, p. 288.

Much could be written concerning the food-habits of the various
members of the group of Thrushes, Mocking-birds and Wrens. Three of
the species at least are known to be more or less destructive to