378 NOTES ON THE 



the eye and running into the chestnut of the ear coverts; back, 

 shoulder, edges of the wing and tail yellowish olive, the 

 former spotted with dusky; one row of small coverts and outer 

 bases of the secondary coverts form a large patch of white 

 tinged with pale yellow; tertials rather broadly edged with 

 brownish white; quills and tail dark brown, the three outer 

 feathers of the latter largely marked with white on the inner 

 web; edge of the outer web of the outer feathers white, more 

 perceptible towards the base. 



Length, 5.25; wing, 2.85; tail, 2.15. 



Habitat, eastern North America, north to Hudson Bay, west 

 to the Plains. 



DENDROICA ESTIVA (Gmelin). (652.) 



YELLOW WARBLER. 



Not for its beautiful colors, for they are certainly unonsten- 

 tatious; not for its melodies, for they are not conspicuous in 

 the grand choristry of bird song; nor for its rariety, for its 

 numbers exceed any other species of the warblers, but after 

 the combination of all expressible reasons comes the inexpres- 

 sible one of its remarkable, inseparable association with the 

 return of full grown, voluptuous spring and summer embraced 

 in one living, throbbing resurrection. Until the unsympathetic, 

 desouled systematologists robbed it of its rightful heritage, it 

 bore the appropriate and expressive name Summer Warbler. 

 With this name were inseparably associated the fra- 

 grance of flowers, the earlier butterflies, the new born ver- 

 dure of forest and field, "the smiles and frowns of April show- 

 ers," with all their golden memories of childhood, youth, and 

 riper, rounder years. Yellow Warbler? How little it means. 

 Where is the ring of spring in it? It has nothing sweet nor 

 green in all of its ripened October sought significance. 



Late in April this warbler comes amongst us as unheralded 

 as the gentle shower that patters on the roof at daybreak. By 

 the 12th to the 15th of May, they construct one of the most 

 artistic, and substantial nests known as belonging to the war- 

 blers. It is either placed in the forks of a bush, or so as to 

 embrace several small branches, about four or five feet above 

 the ground, and consists of bark from weeds, strips of the liber 

 of grapevines, with which the woods abound, into which are 

 ingeniously woven various materials, the special character of 

 which is determined by the immediate surroundings of the lo- 

 cality, embracing bits of wool, down from dead wood and 

 weedstalks, dry grass, and the long hairs from horses and cat- 



