156 BIRDS OF ILLINOIS. 



Dendroeca discolor A. E. NEWTON, Ibis, 1859, 144. COUES, Key, 1872,103; Check List, 

 1873, No. 86; 2d ed. 1882, No. 127; B. N. W. 1874,03; B. Col. Val. 1878,246. E me w. Nom. 

 N. Am. B. 1881, No. 114. 



Sylvia minuta Wits. Am. Orn. iii, 1811,87, pi. 85, fig. 4. 



HAB. Eastern United States, north, to Massachusetts and northern Illinois, west to 

 Kansas: breeding nearly throughout its range, in suitable localities. Winters in Florida 

 (and other Gulf States?) and in most of the West Indies. 



"Sp. CHAR. Spring male. Above uniform olive-green, the interscapular region with 

 chestnut-red centres to feathers. Under parts and sides of the head, including a broad 

 superciliary line from the nostrils to a little behind the eye, bright yellow, brightest an- 

 teriorly. A well-defined narrow stripe from the commissure of the mouth through the 

 eye, and another from the same point curving gently below it, also a series of streaks on 

 each side of the body, extending from the throat to the flanks, black. Quills and tail- 

 feathers brown, edged with white; the terminal half of the inner web of the first and 

 second tail-feathers white. Two yellowish bands on the wings. Female siinilar, but 

 duller. The dorsal streaks indistinct. Length, 4.86; wing, 2.25; tail. 2.10. 



"First plumage of the young not seen. 



"Autumnal specimens have the plumage more blended, but the 

 markings not changed. A young male in autumnal dress is wholly 

 brownish olive-green above, the whole wing uniform; the forehead 

 ashy, the markings about the head rather obsolete, the chestnut 

 spots on the back and the black ones on the sides nearly concealed." 

 (Hist.N. Am. B.} 



The so-called Prairie Warbler (and a less appropriate name has 

 rarely been bestowed !), is one of the few species which appear to 

 be more numerous eastward of the Alleghanies than to the west- 

 ward of that range. It is abundant along the Atlantic coast, from 

 Florida to Massachusetts, where it frequents open places, such as 

 neglected fields and pastures, more or less grown up to bushes or 

 young trees, its favorite haunts being localities where young cedars 

 (Juniperus virginiana) are pretty thickly scattered about. Like all 

 other warblers, it visits the orchards when the trees are in blossom, 

 and it was in a blooming apple tree that the only specimen ever 

 shot by the writer at Mount Carmel was killed. 



The nest of this species is thus described by Dr. Brewer, in His- 

 tory of North American Birds (Vol. I., p. 278) : 



"Several nests of this Warbler have been obtained by Mr. Welch 

 in Lynn. One was built on a wild rose, only a few feet from the 

 ground. It is a snug, compact, and elaborately woven structure, 

 having a height and a diameter of about two and a half inches. 

 The cavity is two inches wide and one and a half deep. The ma- 

 terials of which the outer parts are woven are chiefly the soft inner 

 bark of small shrubs, mingled with dry rose-leaves, bits of vegeta- 

 bles, wood, woody fibres, decayed stems of plants, spiders' webs, 



