a 
938 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
attached to the supporting twigs, mixed with some slender strips of 
fine bark and pine-leaves, and thickly bedded with the down of wil- 
lows, the nankeen wool of the Virginia cotton-grass (Hriophorum 
Virginicum), the down of fine stalks, the hair of the downy seeds 
of the button-wood (Platanus), or the papus of compound flowers, 
and then lined either with fine bent grass (Agrostis), or down, and 
horsehair, and rarely with a few accxental feathers.” 
The eggs are usually four in number, sometimes five: 
they vary in color from creamy-white, with numerous spots 
and blotches of different shades of brown, to a grayish-white 
with a greenish tint, and marked with the same spots and 
blotches ; these markings are thickest at the larger end of 
the egg, where they are often confluent. Dimensions vary 
from .67 by .50 inch to .64 by .50 inch. The habits of this 
bird are well known; and its genial nature and confid- 
ing disposition have rendered it a great favorite with the 
farmer. 
DENDROICA MACULOSA. — Baird. 
The Black and Yellow Warbler; Magnolia Warbler. 
Motacilla maculosa, Gmelin. Syst., I. (1788) 984. 
Sylvia maculosa, Nuttall. Man., I. (1832) 370. Aud. Orn. Biog., I. (1831) 260; 
II. (1834) 145; V. (1839) 458. 
Sylvia magnolia, Wilson. Am. Orn., III. (1811) 63. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Male, in spring. —Bill dark bluish-black, rather lighter beneath; tail dusky, 
top of head light grayish-blue; front, lore, cheek, and a stripe under the eye, black, 
running into a large triangular patch on the back, between the wings, which is also 
black; eyelids and a stripe from the eye along the head white; upper tail coverts 
black, some of the feathers tipped with grayish; abdomen and lower tail coverts 
white; rump and under parts, except as described, yellow; lower throat, breast, and 
sides streaked with black, the streaks closer on fhe lower throat and fore breast; 
lesser wing coverts, and edges of the wing and tail, bluish-gray, the former spotted 
with black; quills and tail almost black, the latter with a square patch of white on 
the inner webs of all the tail feathers (but the two inner), beyond the middle of the 
tail; two white bands across the wings (sometimes coalesced into one), formed by 
the small coverts and secondaries; part of the edge.of the inner webs of the quills 
white; feathers margining the black patch on the back End and on the sides 
tinged with greenish. 
Second and third quills longest, first shorter than fourtiis tail rounded, emarginate. 
Female, in spring.—In general appearance like the male, but with the corre- 
sponding colors much duller; the black on the back reduced to a few large proxi- 
