106 LAND-BIRDS. 



B, DISCOLOR. Prairie Warhler. In eastern Massachu- 

 setts, a summer resident of no great rarity.* 



a. About 4J inches long. Olive above, with brick red 

 spots on the back. Under parts, bright yellow. A peculiar 

 mark on the side of the head, and side-streaks on the throat 

 and breast, black. (Details omitted.) 



h. The nest of the Prairie Warbler differs from that of the 

 Yellowbird (^) in being usually lined thickly with liorse- 

 hair (whereas the other is often lined with a dun-colored 

 plant-down), and in being almost invariably semi-pensile. It 

 is usually placed within a few feet of the ground, in a bush or 

 low tree, in a rocky pasture or the " scrub." The eggs average 

 ,65 X .52 of an inch, and are pure white, generally either with 

 delicate lilac (and a few inconspicuous light brown) markings, 

 which form a ring about the crown (such being those which I 

 have found near Boston), or with lilac, purplish, and umber 

 brown markings. Near Boston, one set of three or four 

 eggs f is laid in the first week of June. 



c. The Prairie Warblers are among the smallest and most 

 retired of their family. They are summer residents in the 

 eastern United States so far to the northward as Massachu- 

 setts, in which State they are rather rare in the western part, 

 but quite common in some other parts. In certain localities 

 near Boston they are quite abundant from the second or third 

 week of May until the latter part of August. They frequent 

 almost exclusively rocky pasture lands and the " scrub," and 

 I have but once seen or heard them elsewhere, in that case 

 having heard their song in some shrubbery on a cultivated 

 estate, far from their usual haunts. Though perhaps, as Wil- 

 son remarks, easily approached and not shy, yet they almost 

 invariably shun the neighborhood of man, and live rather 

 solitary in pairs among the pastures where they build their 

 nests. There, when household duties do not interfere, they 

 are busied, not with such marked activity as some other 



* A summer resident of southern however, it is seldom found more than 



New England, very numerous in por- ten or fifteen miles from tide- water. — 



tions of Connecticut and Rhode Island, W. B. 



especially near the coast, and common t Sets of five eggs are by no means 



locally in eastern Massachusetts, where, uncommon. — W. B. 



