BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 391 



myself of the certainty of the identification. Audubon's de- 

 scription of the Blackburnian Warbler's nest and eggs meet my 

 own observations so perfectly that I quote it. It is as follows: 

 "It was composed externally of diiferent textures, and lined 

 with silky fibers, and then delicate strips of fine bark, over 

 which lay a thick bed of feathers and horsehair. The eggs 

 were small, very conical towards the smaller end; pure white, 

 with a few spots of light red towards the larger end. It was 

 found in a small fork of a tree, five or six feet from the ground, 

 near a brook." 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Upper parts nearly uniform black, with a whitish scapular 

 stripe and a large white patch in the middle of the wing cov- 

 erts; an oblong patch in the middle of the crown, and the en- 

 tire side of the head and neck, including a superciliary stripe 

 from the nostrils, the chin, throat, and forepart of the breast, 

 bright orange red; a black stripe from the commissure passing 

 over the lower half of the eye, and including the ear coverts, with, 

 however, an orange crescent in it just below the eye, the extreme 

 lid being black; rest of under parts white, strongly tinged with 

 yellowish-orange on the breast and belly, and streaked with 

 black on the sides; outer three tail feathers and quills almost 

 black. 



Length, 5.50; wing, 2.33; tail, 2.25. 



Habitat, eastern North America to the Plains. 



DENDROICA VIRENS (Gmelin). ^667.) 

 BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER. 



There was general rejoicing when this beautiful bird was 

 first Obtained. I found him in a thicket of poplars some four 

 miles out in the country, and near a strip of heavy forest 

 timber. He arrives not very unfrequently as early as the 30th 

 of April, once on the 25th of that month, but commonly before 

 the 5th of May. On one or two occasions it has been collected 

 as late as the 5th of October, but as a rule they are gone by 

 the 25th of September. This warbler comes to stay, and breeds 

 in almost every section of the State, but is never represented 

 by large numbers. The earliest nests I have seen have been 

 built after the 5th of June, and they bring out but one brood so 

 far as I have observed. It is generally placed in a small tree, 

 about ten or twelve feet from the ground, and consists of fine 

 strings of bark of some flexible kind, disposed very artistically 

 in circles, and woven in with the flaxen fiber of some kinds of 

 weeds for the main structure, which is lined with feathers, and a 



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