Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, volume 1.djvu/476

448 has left, in zigzag lines, as if it were afraid to venture out of the thickets which it inhabits. No sooner have these birds reared their young than they assemble in large loose parties of fifty or more, and return towards the south, throwing themselves amongst the Willows and Birch-trees that margin the streams, as well as into orchards and the scattered trees in cultivated fields. Its common note is a simple tweet, but the male, in spring and during the period of incubation, repeats at short intervals a soft and pleasing variety of notes, scarcely, however, deserving the name of song. These birds are so plentiful, and so easily found, from the middle of September to that of October, that while in the Great Pine Forest I sometimes shot more than a dozen in a day. I have never observed them in the Southern States at that season. I have represented a pair of these plain-looking Warblers on a twig of the Canoe Birch, a tree too well known, from the use to which its bark is applied by the Indians in the construction of their light and beautiful boats, to require any particular description here.

, Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 74.

, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. iii. p. 65. PI. 23. fig. 4.

Adult Male. Plate LXXXVIII. Fig. 1. Bill of ordinary length, nearly straight, slender, tapering, acute. Nostrils basal, lateral, elliptical, half-closed above by a membrane. Head and neck of ordinary size. Body slender. Feet longish, slender; tarsus longer than the middle toe, covered anteriorly with a few scutella, the uppermost long; toes scutellate above, the inner free, the hind toe of moderate size; claws slender, compressed, acute, arched. Plumage loose, blended. Short bristly feathers at the base of the bill. Wings rather short, the first quill longest. Tail even.

Bill brown, the lower mandible yellowish towards the base. Iris hazel. Feet dusky. The general colour of the upper parts is light olive-green. The tail-coverts greyish. A pale line over the eye, which is encircled by a narrow line of whitish. Fore neck dull yellow; under parts generally yellowish-white. Quills and larger coverts dusky on their inner webs, the former margined, the latter tipped with white, so as to present two bands of that colour across the wing. Tail dusky, margined