Excerpt from The Warblers of North America

The Warblers have been described as "our most beautiful, most abundant, and least known birds." The knowledge that at certain seasons our woods, and even the trees of our larger city parks arc thronged with an innumerable host of birds, the brilliancy of whose plumage rivals that of many tropical species, comes to the bird student with the force of a surprising discovery. One never forgets one's first Warbler!

Highly migratory, the extended journeys of Warblers are nevertheless performed with regularity which makes their appearance in the spring a fixed calendar event. The very essence of the season is in their flitting forms and lisping voices, without them May would seem a dreary month and the migration of birds lose half its charm.

But these dainty, fascinating sprites of the tree-tops are elusive. Years of observation may be required to add to one's list of field acquaintances the last of the thirty-odd species which, in eastern North America, may be found at a single locality.

In this quest the field-glass student is handicapped. The small size of Warblers, their activity, the nature of their haunts, their rapid journeys, marked seasonal changes in plumage, and the general resemblance in the song of many species all tend to render recognition in life unusually difficult. This book has, therefore, been prepared with the cooperation of other ornithologists, to meet the demand for a fully illustrated work which will serve as an aid to the field identification of Warblers and to the study of their life-histories.

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