BIRDS OF MINNESOTA 393 



istic for their architecture and neatness. The e^gs, four to 

 five in number, are white with a bluish tinge, dotted with two 

 shades of brown and reddish-pink, with splashes of purple. 



A visit to their legitimate haunts in summer, will find them 

 actively searching the limbs and branches of different species 

 of trees for their special food, after the manner of the creep- 

 ers, ever and anon dashing out after an insect on the wing, like 

 the flycatchers. They leave all parts of the State about the 

 25th of October. Each successive year brings me additional 

 testimony respecting its numbers and distribution. They breed 

 at Brainerd, where I can find them in June of almost any year. 

 In every instance when I have collected birds of this species in 

 migration, they have been associated with the Palm Warbler. 

 [ D. palmarum ( Gmelin)]. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Upper parts nearly uniform clear olive- green, the feathers of 

 the crown with rather darker shafts; under parts generally, 

 except the middle of the belly behind, and under tail coverts 

 (which are white), bright gamboge-yellow, with obsolete 

 streaks of dusky on the sides of the breast and body ; sides of 

 head and neck olive green like the back, with a broad super- 

 ciliary stripe; the eyelids and a spot beneath the eye very 

 obscurely yellow; wings and tail brown; the feathers edged 

 with dirty white, and two bands of the same across the coverts; 

 inner web of the first tail feather with nearly the terminal half 

 of the second with nearly the terminal third, dull inconspicious 

 white. 



Length, 5.50; wing, 3; tail, 2.40. 



Habitat, eastern North America to the Plains. 



DENDROICA PALMARUM (Gmelin). (672.) 



PALM WARBLER. 

 When, and where to look for the Palm Warblers, are not dif- 

 ficult questions to answer to one who has watched the move- 

 ments of birds in migration for many years. We shall need 

 our rubber boots to prepare us for circumnavigating thickets 

 in swampy sections, and we shall need to be warmly clothed, 

 for the winter has gone too recently for dry turf, or for the air 

 to have become specially balmy. Although we may commence 

 our search a few days too soon, we cannot afford to have him 

 occupy our territory unobserved, and so on the 10th of April, 

 we go forth. He may have been there already five days 

 according to notes embracing that date, but somehow a natural 

 born ornithologist will seem to know by his actions how long 



