114 LAND-BIRDS. 



JVarble7\ Generally not a common migrant through Massa- 

 chusetts, where this species occasionally breeds.* 



a. About 4 J inches long. ^ , dark above. Wing-patch, 

 white. Head, throaty and breast^ brilliant orange^ with a 

 border to the crown, and a broad stripe through the eye, 

 black. Sides, black-streaked, and belly nearly white. 5 ? 

 essentially like § striata (^E) above. Superciliary line, 

 throat, and breast, yellow. Otherwise like (J . 



b. A nest of this species, containing young, which I found 

 in northern New Hampshire, was placed about twenty feet 

 from the ground in a pine. Another, which I was so fortunate 

 as to find in a thick hemlock wood near Boston, was also about 

 twenty feet above the ground. It contained three young and a 

 yet unhatched egg^ which measures .65 X . 50, and resembles 

 the egg of the Chestnut-sided Warbler ( (7), being white, with 

 lilac and principally reddish brown markings, groTiped at the 

 larger end. Mr. Maynard thought that the '' Blackburnians " 

 built in the highest branches of the spruces and hemlocks, and 

 such is very probably their custom. 



c. The male Blackburnian Warblers are the handsomest 

 of all their large family, for the combination of delicacy and 

 brilliancy in the orange of their throat is unsurpassed. It is 

 a curious fact that they are ajDparently much more numerous 

 than the females during the migrations, which is the case with 

 several other birds.f This phenomenon has never been satis- 

 factorily explained, and cannot be accounted for merely by the 

 superior gayety of the male's coloration. It has also been 



* Breeds abundantly throughout with this Warbler, but also with many 



northern NewEngland and in Berkshire — perhaps most— North American birds 



and Worcester counties. Massachusetts, in which the sexes differ widely and the 



sparingly and locally in eastern Massa- male alone is brilliantly colored. In- 



chusetts, and occasionally (it is said) in deed, there can be little doubt that with 



Connecticut. Throughout the greater some birds the males outnumber the 



part of southern New England, how- females in the proportion of at least 



ever, it occurs only as a migrant, fre- three or four to one. This numerical 



quently common in spring, but usually, discrepancy is doubtless more or less 



if not invariably, very uncommon in essential to the perpetuation of species, 



autumn. — W. B. the males of which, owing to their con- 



t The males are actually, as well as spicuous plumage, are exposed to un- 



apparently, more numerous, not only usual dangers. — W. B. 



