318 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



This bird winters in large numbers in Central America, where it is appar- 

 ently very generally distributed. Mr. Salvin found it very common at Du- 

 enas. It was taken at Totontepec, among the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, 

 by Mr. Boucard. 



Mr. Eidgway found it very common during the summer and autumn 

 months among the willows of the fertile river valleys, and among the rank 

 shrubbery bordering upon the streams of the canons of the higher interior 

 range of mountains. It was found in similar situations with the Dendroica 

 ccstiva, but it was much more numerous. During September it was most 

 abundant among the thickets and copses of the East Humboldt Mountains, 

 and in liuby Valley, at all altitudes, frequenting the bushes along the streams, 

 from their sources in the snow to the valleys. 



Wilson first met with and described this species from specimens obtained 

 in Delaware and New Jersey. He regarded it as an inhabitant of the swamps 

 of the Southern States, and characterized its song as " a sharp, squeaking- 

 note, in no wise musical." It is said by him to leave the Southern States in 

 October. 



Audubon states that it is never found in the Southern States in the sum- 

 mer months, but passes rapidly through them on its way to the northern dis- 

 tricts, where it breeds, reaching Labrador early in June and returning by the 

 middle of August. He describes it as having all the habits of a true Fly- 

 catcher, feeding on small insects, which it catches on the wing, snapping its 

 bill with a sharp clicking sound. It frequents the borders of lakes and 

 streams fringed with low bushes. 



Mr. Nuttall observed this species in Oregon, where it arrived early in May. 

 He calls it a " little cheerful songster, the very counterpart of our brilliant 

 and cheerful Yellow-Bird." Their song he describes as like Hsh-tsh-tsh-tshea. 

 Their call is brief, and not so loud. It appeared familiar and unsuspicious, 

 kept in bushes busily collecting its insect fare, and only varied its employ- 

 ment by an occasional and earnest warl}le. By the 12th of May some were 

 already feeding their full-fledged young. Yet on the 16th of the same month 

 he found a nest containing four eggs with incubation only just commenced. 

 This nest was in a branch of a small service-hush, laid very adroitly, as to 

 concealment, upon a mass of l/snea. It was built chietly of hypnum mosses, 

 with a thick lining of dry, wiry, slender grasses. The female, when ap- 

 proached, slipped off the nest, and ran along the ground like a mouse. The 

 eggs were very similar to those of Dendroica ccstiva, with spots of a pale 

 olive-brown, confluent at the greater end. 



A nest found by Audubon in Labrador was placed on the extremity of a 

 small horizontal branch, among the thick foliage of a dwarf fir, a few feet 

 from the ground and in the very centre of a thicket. It was made of bits of 

 dry mosses and delicate pine twigs, agglutinated together and to the branches 

 and leaves around it, from which it was suspended. It was lined with fine 

 vegetable fibres. The diameter of the nest was three and a half and the 



