THE PRAIRIE WARBLER. 241 



Description. 



Head above chestnut-red ; rest of upper parts bro^vnish olive-gray ; the feathers 

 with darker centres, the color brightening on the rump, upper tail coverts, and outer 

 margins of wing and tail feathers, to greenish-yellow; a streak fi'om nostrils over the 

 eye, and under parts generally, including the tail coverts, bright-yellow; paler on 

 the body; a maxillary line; breast and sides tinely but rather obsoletely streaked 

 with reddish-brown; cheeks brownish (in highest spring plumage, chestnut like the 

 head); the ej'elids and a spot under the eye olive-brown; lores dusky; a white spot 

 on the inner web of the outer two tail feathers at the end. 



Length, five inches; wing, two and forty-two one-hundredths ; tail, two and 

 twenty-five one-hundredths inches. 



This is one of the earliest of our spring visitors, arriving 

 sometimes as early as the first week in April : it is quite 

 abundant until the second week of May, when it moves on 

 to its northern breeding-homes. While here, it prefers the 

 neighborhood of a swampy thicket, and is seldom seen in 

 high dry woods. It is, like the other Warblers, always 

 actively employed in searching for insects, which it captures 

 as often while on the wing as otherwise. Its note is a faint 

 tiyikh like that of the Golden-crested Wren. There are only 

 a few that breed in New England. I have in my collection a 

 nest and eggs collected in Northern Maine by Mr. George 

 A. Boardman, of Calais. The nest was placed on the 

 ground. It is constructed loosely, first of stalks of weeds 

 and grasses : above these is placed a layer of fine roots and 

 grass ; then are laid pieces of moss, caterpillars' silk, fine 

 grasses, and hairs ; and the whole is deeply hollowed, and 

 lined with fine roots and pine-leaves. Two eggs in the nest 

 are of a delicate white, with a faint roseate tint : they are 

 marked at the larger end with fine spots and blotches of 

 reddish and brown. They are about the size of the eggs 

 of the Blue Yellow-backed Warbler, being .61 by .50 inch 

 and .62 by .51 inch. 



DENDEOICA DISCOLOR. — Baird. 



The Prairie Warbler. 



Sylvia discolor, Vieillot. Ois. Am. Sept., II. (1807) 37. Aud. Orn. Biog., L 

 (1831) 76. Nutt. Man., I. (1832) 294. 



Sylvia minuta, Wilson. Am. Oru., III. (1811) 87. 



16 



