BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 381 



tail black above, the former with a conspicuous white patch 

 formed by the bases of all the primaries except the first; inner 

 webs of the secondaries and tertials with similar patches to 

 wards the base, and along the inner margin; all the tail feath- 

 ers except the innermost, with a white patch on the inner web 

 near the end 



Length, 5.50; wing, 2.60; tail, 2.25. 



Habitat, eastern North America to the Plains. 



DENDROICA CORONATA (L.). (655.) 

 MYRTLE WARBLER. 



During their migrations, either in spring or autumn, this is 

 by far the most numerous species of its family, arriving in the 

 southern sections of the State as early as the 5th of April, and 

 reaching Minneapolis and vicinity by the 15th. At first seen 

 often only in comparatively small parties, they soon increase 

 until they seem to be in loose hordes, in search of insects of 

 all kinds found on the trees, or in the air, for no genuine fly- 

 catcher can exceed them in taking insects on the wing. 



Their movements are more dignified than those of the other 

 warblers, exhibiting little of the nervous manners character- 

 istic of the family, while tireless in their industry. They pass 

 us entirely by the middle of May, breeding still further to the 

 north. 



Mr. Washburn found the young birds at Thief river, one of 

 the tributaries of Red Lake river in Polk county, in August, 

 and Mr. Lewis reports the younar common in Itasca and St. 

 Louis counties earlier in the season, from which there can be 

 no further doubt of its local nidification. The autumnal migra- 

 tion has fairly begun fronr the 15th to the 20th of September, 

 but it is not terminated until the first of November. Their 

 lines of movement, both before and after their breeding, are 

 somewhat restricted, and follow the course of the larger 

 streams and lakes bordered with timber. In the springs of my 

 earliest residence here, I was somewhat of a duck hunter, and 

 visited the principal localities in the vicinity of my residence 

 very frequently, where such game abounded. I think I met 

 with the present species several years the very day they first 

 came, and one of these was on the 31st of March, and another 

 the 2d day of April. On these occasions I was very much in- 

 terested to observe their feeding. They were not at all shy, 

 but would prosecute their explorations of every limb, branch, 

 twig, and dead leaf of the very tree under and behind which I 



