Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/807

 rians, Serbs, and Roumans. The country is flat and steppe-like, excepting along the hilly shores of the Dnieper, the chief river. Tho soil is favorable to agriculture and the raising of cattle ; some of the finest-wooled sheep of Kussia are in this government. Timber is scarce, but coal abounds. Fruits, including figs and almonds, are produced in the south, as well as wine, much of which is made from the sloe or wild plum. Silk is also produced. Yekaterinoslav was peopled with new colonies in 1752, and called New Servia, and after 1764 New Eussia; since 1783 it has formed the present government, containing many cities, the most important of which are the seaports Taganrog, Mariupol, and Alexandrovsk, the fortress Rostov, and Nakhitchevan, the head- quarters of the Armenians. II. A city, capital of the government, on the right bank of the Dnieper, 250 m. a, E. of Odessa; pop. in 1 867, 22,548. It has seven churches, a gymna- sium with a public library, an ecclesiastical seminary, a botanic garden, a park, cloth and Bilk manufactories, and an annual wool fair. There is much trade with Odessa. In the vicinity is a ruined palace of Potemkin, who founded the town in 1784, and named it after the empress Catharine II. YELISAVETGRAD. See ELISABETHGEAD. YELL, a W. county of Arkansas, bounded N. E. by Arkansas river, and intersected by its tributaries Fourche la Fave and Petit Jean riv- ers ; area, 936 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 8,048, of whom Y67 were colored. It has a diversified surface, and the soil is generally fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 13,802 bushels of wheat, 206,075 of Indian corn, 11,890 of oats, 6,269 of Irish and 15,932 of sweet pota- toes, 97,392 Ibs. of butter, 2,999 of wool, 4,404 of tobacco, and 3,671 bales of cotton. There were 1,397 horses, 5,336 cattle, 2,200 sheep, and 14,224 swine. Capital, Danville. YELLOW BIRD. I. The' American goldfinch or thistle bird (chrysomitris triatis, Bonap.). Yellow Bird (Chrysomitris tristis). It is 5J in. long and 8f in. in extent of wings. The male is of a bright gamboge-yellow color, with black crown, wings, and tail ; band across wings, inner margin of tail feathers, and upper and under tail coverts, white ; in winter it is yellowish brown above and ashy brown below, YELLOW-EYED GRASS 779 very much like the females at all seasons. It is generally distributed over North America, seldom alighting on the ground except to drink and bathe; many are usually seen together, feeding on the seeds of hemp, sunflowers, let- tuce, and thistles, and sometimes on elder and other berries; the song is very pleasing, and for this as well as its beauty, sprightliness, and docility, it is kept in cages ; it lives for years in confinement, practising many of the tricks taught to canaries, with which it will breed. Like the European goldfinch, it makes its nest, in a tree or bush, of lichens fastened together with saliva, and lined with the softest sub- stances it can procure; the eggs are four to six, white tinged with bluish, with reddish brown spots at the larger end ; one brood only is raised in a season, and the young follow their parents a long time, being fed from their mouths. Several other nearly allied species are described in vol. ix. of the Pacific railroad reports. II. The summer yellow bird, or yel- low-poll warbler (dendroica cestiva, Baird), is of about the same size, with the head and lower parts bright yellow ; rest of upper parts yel- lowish olivaceous, the back, breast, and sides streaked with brownish red ; tail bright yel- low, with the outer webs and tips brown ; two yellow bands on the wings ; bill dark blue ; in the female the crown is greenish olive. It is found throughout the United States, going north to lat. 68, south to Central and South America and the West Indies, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; numerous in New England in the summer, it goes south in autumn in small flocks, chiefly at night; its song is not melodious ; the food consists prin- cipally of insects, which are sought for among the leaves and blossoms. It builds in bushes, often very near dwellings and in thickly set- tled places; the nest is strongly fastened to the fork of a bush, and is made externally of hemp, flax, wool, cotton, or the down of the brake, and is lined with hair and soft ma- terials ; the eggs are four or five, f by in., light dull bluish white, with numerous dots and marks of dull reddish brown; only one brood is raised in New England, which are carefully fed and protected, the parents using the most ingenious devices to draw away in- truders. The cow bird often selects the nest of the summer yellow bird in which to deposit one of its parasitic eggs; the yellow bird, as it cannot eject the large strange egg, picks a hole in it, and buries it at the bottom of the nest, placing a new floor over it; it sometimes buries its own eggs with that of the cow bird, and lays others ; if by chance the cow bird visit the second nest, it buries the eggs a second time, giving rise to the three storied nests oc- casionally found by egg hunters. YELLOW-EYED GRASS, the common name for plants of the genus xyris (Gr. t-vpig, some plant with two-edged leaves), which consists of bi- ennial or perennial rush-like plants, and gives its name to a small order of endogens, the