THE PRAIRIE WARBLER. 241 
DESCRIPTION. 
Head above chestnut-red; rest of upper parts brownish olive-gray; the feathers 
with darker centres, the color brightening on the rump, upper tail coverts, and outer 
margins of wing and tail feathers, to greenish-yellow; a streak from nostrils over the 
eye, and under parts generally, including the tail coverts, bright-yellow; paler on 
the body; a maxillary line; breast and sides finely but rather obsoletely streaked 
with reddish-brown; cheeks brownish (in highest spring plumage, chestnut like the 
head); the eyelids and a spot under the eye olive-brown; lores dusky; a white spot 
on the inner web of the outer two tail feathers at the end. * 
Length, five inches; wing, two and forty-two one-hundredths; tail, two and 
twenty-five one-hundredths inches. 
This is one of the earliest of our spring visitors, arriving 
sometimes as early as the first week in April: it is quite 
abundant until the second week of May, when it moves on 
to its northern breeding-homes. While here, it prefers the 
neighborhood of a swampy thicket, and is seldom seen in 
high dry woods. It is, like the other Warblers, always 
actively employed in searching for insects, which it captures 
as often while on the wing as otherwise. Its note is a faint 
tinkle like that of the Golden-crested Wren. There are only 
afew that breed in New England. I have in my collection a 
nest and eggs collected in Northern Maine by Mr. George 
A. Boardman, of Calais. The nest was placed on the 
ground. It is constructed loosely, first of stalks of weeds 
and grasses: above these is placed a layer of fine roots and 
grass; then are laid pieces of moss, caterpillars’ silk, fine 
grasses, and hairs; and the whole is deeply hollowed, and 
lined with fine roots and pine-leaves. Two eggs in the nest 
are of a delicate white, with a faint roseate tint: they are 
marked at the larger end with fine spots and blotches of 
reddish and brown. They are about the size of the eggs 
of the Blue Yellow-backed Warbler, being .61 by .50 inch 
and .62 by .51 inch. 
DENDROICA DISCOLOR. — Baird. 
The Prairie Warbler, 
Sylvia discolor, Vieillot. Ois. Am. Sept., II. (1807) 87. Aud. Orn. Biog., L. 
(1831) 76. Nutt. Man., I. (1832) 294. ° 
Sylvia minuta, Wilson. Am. Orn., III. (1811) 87. 
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