For the most part it seems to prefer wild lands, especially those overgrown with briers and low bushes, to open or cultivated grounds. Yet this preference is not exclusive, as I have known a pair, or their offspring, to visit the
same garden nine or ten successive summers. It is also more generally found in low lands than in high, and is probably attracted to moist thickets of briers and underbrush by the greater abundance of its favorite food. This Warbler is eminently terrestrial in its habits, never being found among higher limbs, but always either on the ground or among the lower branches of bushes, vines, and weeds. It is a diligent rather than an active or nimble bird, is always on the move, and incessantly in search of its food. This consists of insects in all their forms, but more particularly of larvæ, small beetles, and spiders. They are of great service in the destruction of several forms of injurious grubs, and but that their mode of life exposes them to destruction by prowling cats, I doubt not they would readily adapt themselves to living in our gardens. Occasionally they are found in fields of grain, where their presence is due to the abundance of destructive insects.
The Yellow-Throat appears shy and retiring because it prefers to move back and forth among low shrubs and brambles, where it most readily procures its food, but it is not a timid bird. They are unsuspecting, and will as readily permit as fly from the near presence of man. I have frequently had them approach within a few feet, especially when at rest; and even when in motion they will continue their lively song, as they move about from twig to twig. Though able to capture an insect on the wing, they are not expert fly-catchers, and chiefly take their prey when it is at rest.
Their song is a very lively and agreeable refrain, easily recognized, though exhibiting at times marked differences, and occasionally closely resembling the song of the Summer Yellow-Bird. The same brief series of notes, usually sounding like whi-ti-tēē-tēē, is constantly repeated at short intervals, while the singer continues his perpetual hunt for insects.
The male is very affectionate and devoted to both mate and offspring. The pair are never far apart, and during incubation the male is assiduous in the collection of food, feeding its mate, and afterwards assisting in collecting for their young. They rely upon concealment for the protection of their nest, and rarely show any open solicitude until it is discovered. Then they will make the most vehement demonstrations of alarm and distress, flying about the intruder and fearlessly approaching him to within a few feet. In Massachusetts they rarely, if ever, have more than one brood in a season. The young are able to take care of themselves early in July. At that time the song of the male ceases, or is abbreviated to a single whit, and parents and young form a family group and together hunt in the more secluded thickets, the edges of woods, and other retired places, for their food. Early in September they take their departure.
The Yellow-Throat is distributed, in suitable localities, over a large area, and wherever found is apparently equally common. Dr. Gerhardt found it quite abundant in Northern Georgia. Wilson and Audubon thought it more common in the Middle States than farther north, but I have found it quite as numerous about Halifax and Eastport as I have at Washington. Dr. Cooper
speaks of it as “very common” in Washington Territory, though not so abundant as MacGillivray’s Warbler. The same writer also states it to be a “very common bird” in California. Their earliest arrival at San Diego was on the 17th of April, about the time they reach Pennsylvania. They appear in New England early in May.
Their nest is almost invariably upon the ground, usually in a thick bed of fallen leaves, a clump of grass or weeds, at the roots of low bushes or briers, or under the shelter of a brush-pile. Occasionally it has been found among high weeds, built in a matted cluster of branches, four or five feet from the ground. Sometimes it is sunk in a depression in the ground, and often its top is covered by loose overlying leaves. I have never found this top interwoven with or forming any part of the nest itself.
The nest is usually both large and deep for the size of the bird, its loose periphery of leaves and dry sedges adding to its size, and it often has a depth of from five to six inches from its rim to its base. The cavity is usually three inches deep and two and a quarter wide. Generally these nests are constructed on a base of dry leaves. An external framework, rudely put together, of dry grasses, sedge leaves, strips of dry bark, twigs, and decaying vegetables, covers an inner nest, or lining, of finer materials, and more carefully woven. At the rim of the nest these materials sometimes project like a rude palisade or hedge. Usually the lining is of fine grasses, without hair or feathers of any kind.
In some nests the outer portion and base are composed almost entirely of fine dry strips of the inner bark of the wild grape.