KENTUCKY WARBLER. 197 



The Tennessee Warbler is four inches and three quarters long, and 

 eight inches in extent ; the back, rump and tail coverts, are of a rich 

 yellow olive ; lesser wings coverts the same ; wings deep dusky, edged 

 broadly with yellow olive ; tail forked, olive, relieved with dusky ; 

 cheeks and upper part of the head inclining to light bluish, and tinged 

 with olive ; line from the nostrils over the eye pale yellow, fading into 

 white ; throat and breast pale cream color ; belly and vent white ; legs 

 purplish brown ; bill pointed and thicker at the base than those of the 

 Sylvia genus generally are ; upper mandible dark dusky, lower some- 

 what paler ; eye hazel. 



The female differs little, in the color of her plumage, from the male ; 

 the yellow line over the eye is more obscure, and the olive not of so rich 

 a tint. 



Species XXV. . SYLVIA FORMOSA. 



KENTUCKY WARBLER. 



[Plate XXV. Fig. 3.] 



This new and beautiful species inhabits the country whose name it 

 bears. It is also found generally in all the intermediate tracts between 

 Nashville and New Orleans, and below that as far as the Balize, or mouths 

 of the Mississippi, where I heard it several times, twittering among the 

 high rank grass and low bushes of those solitary and desolate looking 

 morasses. In Kentucky and Tennessee it is particularly numerous, 

 frequenting low damp woods, and builds its nest in the middle of a thick 

 tuft of rank grass, sometimes in the fork of a low bush, and sometimes 

 on the ground ; in all of which situations I have found it. The mate- 

 rials are loose dry grass, mixed with the light pith of weeds, and lined 

 with hair. The female lays four, and sometimes six eggs, pure white, 

 sprinkled with specks of reddish. I observed her sitting early in May. 

 This species is seldom seen among the high branches ; but loves to 

 frequent low bushes and cane swamps, and is an active sprightly bird. 

 Its notes are loud, and in threes, resembling tweedle, tweedle, tweedle. 

 It appears in Kentucky from the south about the middle of April ; and 

 leaves the territory of New Orleans on the approach of cold weather ; 

 at least I was assured that it does not remain there during the winter. 

 It appeared to me to be a restless, fighting species ; almost always 

 engaged in pursuing some of its fellows ; though this might have been 

 occasioned by its numbers, and the particular season of spring, when 

 love and jealousy rage with violence in thu breasts of the feathered 



