248 SINGING BIRDS. 



ground; of grass and lichens fastened with insect silk, lined with fine 

 grass. 



Eggs. 4 ; white with green or blue tint, spotted chiefly around the 

 larger end with reddish brown and lilac ; 0.70 X 0.53. 



This very delicately colored species is among the rarest 

 summer residents of the Atlantic States, and does not probably 

 migrate or rather stray farther north than the State of New 

 York. In the Southwestern States, particularly Tennessee and 

 West Florida, it is one of the most abundant species ; it is also 

 found in the western wilderness beyond the Mississippi. It is 

 only in the summer that it ventures into the Middle States, 

 from which it retires almost before the first chills of autumn, or 

 by the middle of August. It frequents the borders of streams 

 and marshes, and possesses many of the habits of the Fly- 

 catchers, warbling also at times in a lively manner, and 

 though its song be short, it is at the same time sweet and 

 mellow. 



The principal range of this daintily dressed songster is through 

 the southwestern division of this Eastern Province, between the 

 valley of the Mississippi and the Alleghanian hills, north to Ohio 

 (where it is abundant), southern Ontario, Indiana, and Illinois. 

 It occasionally wanders eastward to central New York, Rhode 

 Island, and Connecticut. 



Nuttall copied Audubon when characterizing the song of this 

 species as " sweet and mellow." 



Wilson, who discovered the bird and named it the Blue-green 

 Warbler, described the note as " a feeble chirp." Between the 

 opposed opinions of these fathers of American ornithology comes 

 the report of a recent observer, Mr. William Brewster, who found 

 the species abundant in West Virginia. '■ At best it is a modest 

 little strain, and far from deserving the encomium passed upon it 

 by Audubon ; " and again, " The song is a guttral trill much like 

 that of the Blue Yellow-backed Warbler." 



