238 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 (Eriophorum 

 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 accidental 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 ; nch. 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. 



DENDEOICA MACULOSA. Saird. 

 The Black and Yellow Warbler; Magnolia Warbler. 



Motacilla maculosa, Gmelin. Syst, I. (1788) 984. 



Syhia 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 dusk\ , 

 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 the 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 behind and on the sides 

 tinged with greenish. 



Second and third quills longest, first shorter than fourth; 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 larj;e proxi- 



