This peculiarity on the part of the Cape May is the more curious because _all_ the warblers, numerous as these are and varying as widely as possible in character, plumage and habits, are alike in one respect--they are insect-eaters. Whether they are ground warblers or haunt river side and stream or explore trunk, branch, and twig-like creepers, or glean their food from the leaves, or resemble the flycatchers in habit, they live on insects, flies, ants, canker-worms, caterpillars, gnats, the larvæ and eggs of insects; nothing of this sort comes amiss to them. Some warblers seek this food in the tree-tops, and rarely descend; others feed on the ground and build their nests there. Many frequent lower boughs and shrubs, but all seek insects as their prey. A few, it is true, like the eccentric chat and the pretty gold-crowned thrush, who is _not_ a thrush after all, in spite of his speckled breast, are very fond of berries. But none retain the honey-sucking habits for which the tube-like and fringed tongues, and keen, needle-like bills, were fashioned. There is also a queer coincidence between the nest-making of the Cape May warbler and that of the flower-peckers in the Philippines Islands--another curious survival. Mr. John Whitehead, the naturalist and explorer, found a most exquisite rose-colored pouch, which looked as if formed of rose-petals, though it was in fact made of other material. The little honey-sucker had woven it together with the silken threads of a spider's web. Now, the Cape May warbler weaves his partly hanging nest of twigs and grass, and lines it with horsehair in the great fir woods of the north, but he, too, fastens it together _with spider's webbing_. The Cape May is a rare warbler. Dr. Rives, in his list of Virginia birds, mentions it as "a rare migrant," though Dr. Fisher says it is sometimes comparatively common in the fall near Washington. It was, therefore, a charming surprise when (September, 1899,) I found the Cape Mays our most common migrants at Lynchburg, Va. From September 20 to October 18 our maple-tree was rarely without them. A great deal of noisy work was going on close by, as the street was being widened and newly paved, but these "tiny scraps of valor," as Emerson calls his friends, the chickadees, showed no timidity or distrust. The colors of the different birds varied widely. One could hardly believe that the adult male Cape May with his striking white on rich olive above, and his tiger-like streaks of glossy black on shining yellow below, his dark cap and chestnut-red ear-patches, belonged to the same family as the immature female. _She_ is plain grayish olive above, and has a streaked grayish breast, as sober as a Quaker, save for her yellow rump. The Cape May, the prairie, the myrtle and the magnolia warblers are the four yellow-rumped species--a most convenient mark of distinction.