126 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



notes. In October I have once or twice heard the " Yellow- 

 rumps " utter a warble, which was soft, sweet, and very rich. 



(M) MACULOSA. Black and Yellow Warbler. '■'■ 3[agnoUa 

 Warbler." 



(A rather rare migrant through Massachusetts.) 



(a). About five inches long. Dark above. Rump, yellow. 

 Croion ashy (-blue?). Forehead and a broad bar through the 

 e^^e, black. Under parts 3'ellow ; breast black-streaked. Whig- 

 patch, etc., white. 9 ? ^'i^h head-markings and streaks less 

 distinct. 



(b). The nest is usually built in a low spruce, often near a 

 path through the woods, three or four feet from the ground, 

 and is finished in the first week of June. (A second is some- 

 times built about the first of July.) It is composed outwardly 

 of pine-needles, hemlock-twigs, or the like, and is lined with 

 horse-hairs or the black fibres of a certain moss. The eggs 

 average '6d X "50 of an inch, and are white with lilac and 

 brown, or umber-brown, markings, often forming a ring about 

 the crown. Some eggs of this species which I found in North- 

 ern New Hampshire are clouded at the larger end with obscure 

 lilac and three shades of a beautiful, bright, but peculiar 

 brown. 



(c). The Black and Yellow "Warblers are perhaps, with the 

 exception of the Blackburnian Warblers, the handsomest of 

 their family, and therefore it is to be regretted that they are in 

 Massachusetts only for a short time in the latter part of May, 

 being even then not common. They arrive here about the 

 middle or twentieth of that month, and linger for a few da\'s, 

 but, after having passed the summer in the woods of Canada, 

 Northern New Hamj^shire, and Maine, return to the South by 

 an inland route, avoiding this State, or at least the eastern 

 part of it. Whilst here, they frequent woods, trees, and 

 shrubbery of various kinds, particularly spruces, generally in 

 pairs or singly. They do not exhibit so many traits of the 

 flycatchers as several other warblers do, but usually catch in- 

 sects in the air, only as they move from one tree to another. 



