SYLVICOLID.E — THE WARBLERS. 209 



Autumnal males are browner on the chin, yellower on the throat and 

 jugulum. Head tinged with greenish ; secondaries edged with greenish-yel- 

 low. Autumnal females are light green- 

 ish-olive above, dirty-white beneatli. 



In very brightly colored spring males, 

 there is frequently (as in 58,335, Phila- 

 delphia) a well-defined, broad blackish 

 band across the jugulum, anterior to an 

 equally distinct and rather broader one 

 across the breast, of a brown tint, spotted 

 with black, while the sides are much 

 spotted with chestnut-brown; the blue 



above is very pure, and the green patch on the back very sharply de- 

 fined. 



Habits. The Blue Yellow-Back is one of our most interesting and attrac- 

 tive Warblers. Nowhere very abundant, it has a well-marked and restricted 

 area within which it is sparingly distributed. It is found from tlie Missis- 

 sippi Valley to tlie Atlantic, and from Canada southward. In its winter 

 migrations it visits the West Indies, the Bahamas, and Central and South 

 America. Halifax on the east, and Platte River on the west, appear to be 

 the northern limit of its distribution. Dr. Woodhouse met with it in the 

 Indian Territory during the breeding-season. Mr. Alfred Newton found this 

 species, apparently only a winter visitant, in the island of St. Croix. ]\Iost 

 of the birds left about the middle of March, tliough a few remained until 

 early in May. 



A single specimen of this species was taken at South Greenland in 

 1857. 



This Warbler has been found breeding as far to the south as Tuckertown, 

 N. J., by Mr. W. S. Wood ; and at Cape May, in the same State, by Mr. 

 John Krider. At Washington, Dr. Coues found it only a spring and autumn 

 visitant, exceedingly abundant from April 25 to May 15. Possibly a 

 few remained to breed, as he met with them in the first week of August. 

 In the fall they were again abundant from August 25 to the second week in 

 October. He found them inhabiting exclusively high open woods, and 

 usually seen in tlie tops of the trees, or at tlie extremities of the branches, 

 in the tufts of leaves and blossoms. 



Even where most common it is not an abundant species, and is to be found 

 only in certain localities, somewhat open and swampy thickets, usually not 

 of great extent, and prefers those well covered with the long gray lichens 

 known as Spanish moss. In such localities only, so far as I know, do they 

 breed. 



This Warbler has also been ascertained to breed in Southern Illinois, where 

 Mr. Piidgway found it in July, engaged in feeding fully fledged young birds. 

 It is there most common in s[)ring and fall. 

 27 



