Clarence F. Smith has furnished references to food habits of all the species of wood warblers. Aretas A. Saunders has contributed full and accurate descriptions of the songs and call notes of all the species with which he is familiar, based on his extensive musical records. Dr. Alexander F. Skutch has sent us full accounts of all the North American wood warblers that migrate through or spend the winter in Central America, with dates of arrival and departure. James Lee Peters has furnished descriptions of molts and plumages of several species and has copied several original descriptions of subspecies from publications that were not available to the author. Eggs were measured for this volume by American Museum of Natural History (C. K. Nichols), California Academy of Sciences (R. T. Orr), Colorado Museum of Natural History (F. G. Brandenburg), C. E. Doe, W. E. Griffee, W. C. Hanna, E. N. Harrison, H. L. Heaton, A. D. Henderson, Museum of Comparative Zoology (W. G. F. Harris), and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (M. Jollie). The manuscript for this Bulletin was written in 1945; only important information could be added. If the reader fails to find in these pages anything that he knows about the birds, he can only blame himself for failing to send the information to-- THE AUTHOR. LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WOOD WARBLERS Order PASSERIFORMES: Family PARULIDAE By ARTHUR CLEVELAND BENT _Taunton, Mass_. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE FAMILY PARULIDAE CONTRIBUTED BY WINSOR MARRETT TYLER The family of wood warblers, Parulidae, is the second largest family of North American birds, surpassed only in number of species by the family Fringillidae. The wood warblers occur only in the Western Hemisphere; they are distinct from the Old World warblers, Sylviidae, although the two families play a similar rôle in nature's economy. The wood warblers are largely nocturnal migrants, whose long journeys in the dark of night over sea and lake and along the coast expose them to many perils, one being the lighthouses they strike with frequently fatal results. Their notes are seldom heard from the night sky during their spring migration, but on many a calm, quiet night in August and September, as they fly overhead, their sharp, sibilant, staccato notes punctuate the rhythmic beat of the tree-crickets singing in the shrubbery and stand out clearly among the soft, whistled calls of the migrating thrushes.