Wing-bars
grayish.
Female -- Resembles male in winter plumage.
Range -- Eastern North America. Occasional on Pacific slope.
Summers from Minnesota and northern New England northward to
Fur Countries. Winters from Middle States south ward into
Central America; a few often remaining at the northern United
States all the winter.
Migrations -- April. October. November. Also, but more rarely, a
winter resident.
The first of the warblers to arrive in the spring and the last to leave us in
the autumn, some even remaining throughout the northern winter, the myrtle
warbler, next to the summer yellowbird, is the most familiar of its
multitudinous kin. Though we become acquainted with it chiefly in the
migrations, it impresses us by its numbers rather than by any gorgeousness of
attire. The four yellow spots on crown, lower back, and sides are its
distinguishing marks; and in the autumn these marks have dwindled to only one,
that on the lower back or rump. The great difficulty experienced in
identifying any warbler is in its restless habit of flitting about.
For a few days in early May we are forcibly reminded of the Florida peninsula,
which fairly teems with these birds; they become almost superabundant, a
distraction during the precious days when the rarer species are quietly
slipping by, not to return again for a year, perhaps longer, for some warblers
are notoriously irregular in their routes north and south, and never return by
the way they travelled in the spring.
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