404 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 



This species is about 5 inches in length, and 6^ to 7 in alar dimen- 

 sions. Above yellow-olive, inclining to cinereous on the crown. 

 Throat, breast, and vent yellow, fainter on the belly. Wings, and 

 unspotted, toedge-shaiTped tail, dusky brown; the quills of both edged 

 with yellow olive. Bill black above, paler beneath. Legs pale flesh- 

 color and remarkably delicate. Iris dark hazel. — Sometimes male 

 birds occur with the pale grey line over the eye exalted into white 

 as in BufFon's figure. — The yoimg, at first, resemble the female, 

 but the male of the season, before his departure in autumn, exhibits 

 the brilliant yellow throat, as well as some appearance of the grey 

 and black, which ornament the sides of the face in the adult. 



MOURNING WARBLER. 



(Sylvia Philadelphia, WilsoxV, ii. p. 101. pi. 14. fig. G. [female.?] 



Sp. Charact. — Dark greenish- olive ; head dark grey ; a crescent 

 of alternate white and black lines on the breast ; belly yellow ; 

 tail cuneiform. 



Wilson, the discoverer of this curious species, never 

 met with more than a single individual, which, in its 

 habits of frequenting marshy ground, and flitting through 

 low bushes in quest of insects, appears very similar to 

 the preceding species, of which Prince Bonaparte con- 

 jectures it to be only an accidental variety. The dis- 

 coverer, however, also distinguished it more importantly 

 by the novelty of its sprightly and pleasant warble ; we 

 may therefore perhaps consider it as a solitary straggler 

 from the main body in the western regions of this vast 

 continent. It was shot in the early part of June near 

 Philadelphia. 



On the 20th of May (1831) I saw, as I believe, the 

 male of this species in the dark shrubbery of the Botanic 

 Garden (in Cambridge.) It possessed all the manners 

 of the preceding species, was equally busy in search of 

 insects in the low bushes, and, at little intervals, warbled 

 out some very pleasant notes, which, though they resem- 



