{ 
a eT I Py 3 
THE YELLOW WARBLER. 237 
About the middle of October, sometimes not before the 
last of that month, the Black-poll Warbler leaves on its 
southern migration: at that time, it has, in New England 
certainly, all the characteristics and habits of the Autumnal 
Warbler described above; and, having examined numbers 
of specimens, I conclude, from the reasons expressed above, 
that the species are identical. 
DENDROICA ASTIVA, — Baird. 
The Yellow Warbler. 
Motacilla estiva, Gmelin. Syst. Nat., I. (1788) 996. 
Sylvia citrinella, Wilson. -Am. Orn., II. (1810) 111. 
Sylvia childrent, Audubon. Orn. Biog., I. (1831) 180. 
Motacilla petechia, Linneus. Syst. Nat., I. (1766) 334. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Bill lead-color; head all round, and under parts generally, bright-yellow; rest of 
upper parts yellow-olivaceous, brightest on the rump; back with obsolete streaks 
of dusky reddish-brown; fore breast and sides of the body streaked with brownish- 
red; tail feathers bright-yellow; the outer webs and tips, with the whole upper sur- 
faces of the innermost one, brown; extreme outer edges of wing and tail feathers 
olivaceous, like the back; the middle and greater coverts and tertials edged with 
yellow, forming two bands on the wings. Female similar, with the crown olivaceous, 
like the back, and the streaks wanting on the back, and much restricted on the under 
parts; tail with more brown. 
Length of male, five and twenty-five one-hundredths inches; wing, two and sixty- 
six onerhundredths; tail, two and twenty-five one-hundredths inches. 
This exceedingly abundant species is a summer resident, 
and breeds in all the New-England States. It arrives from 
the South about the last of April or first of May, and com- 
mences building about the 15th of the latter month. The 
nest is usually placed in a low bush, frequently the bar- 
berry. Occasionally, it is built in an alder or maple tree, 
seldom more than fifteen or twenty feet:from the ground, 
although Mr. Nuttall gives instances of its being built in the 
forks of a sugar-maple-tree, fifty feet from the ground: this, 
however, is a very rare case. Nuttall’s description of the 
nest is the best I have seen, and I give it entire: — 
“The nest is extremely neat and durable; the exterior is formed 
of layers of asclepias, or silk-weed lint, glutinously though slightly 
