100 LAND-BIRDS. 



they are common, are free from shyness, and usually remain 

 near the ground, with their boldly marked plumage in con- 

 spicuous contrast with the bark of the white oaks and chest- 

 nuts, to which they so often turn their attention. They are 

 eminently useful, and few creatures do more good in protect- 

 ing the growth and life of our forest-trees, and the trees of 

 woodland freshly sprung up to supply the place of a former 

 growth. 



COMPSOTHLYPIS. 

 A. AMERICANA. Blue Yellow-backed Warbler. " Blue 

 Yellow-bach" A summer resident in northern New England, 

 and usually a common migrant through Massachusetts, where 

 a very few breed.* 



a. About 4| inches long. Above, blue, ashy-tinted, with 

 a yellowish patch on the back. Lore, black. Throat and 

 part of the breast, yellow, with a rich, dark brownish patch. 

 Upper throat, immaculate. Other under parts, wing-bars, and 

 tail-spots, white. , rather duller, with less distinct mark- 

 ings. (Details omitted.) 



b. The nest is globular, with an entrance on the side, and 

 is composed principally of hanging mosses. It is usually 

 placed in the woods, twenty or more feet from the ground, 

 toward the end of a bough. It has four or five freshly laid 

 eggs in early June, which average about .62 X .48 of an 

 inch, and are white (or cream-tinted), with spots and conflu- 

 ent blotches of reddish brown and lilac, chiefly about the crown. 



c. The " Blue Yellow-backs " are summer residents through- 

 out the eastern United States, more commonly in northern 

 Maine and New Hampshire than in Massachusetts, where 



* A summer resident whose distri- part of Cape Cod, the Blue Yellow-hack 



hution is strictly coextensive with that occurs throughout most of the interme- 



pf the Usnea " moss," in, or of, which diate or central portions of New Eng- 



it invariahly builds its nest. Thus it land, as well as near the eastern coast 



happens that, although a common and of Massachusetts, chiefly as a migrant, 



characteristic hird of the extensive co- although a few hirds breed here and 



niferous forests of northern New Eng- there at more or less widely separated 



land, and still more abundant in south- localities wherever their favorite Usnea 



era Connecticut, Rhode Island, and is found. W. B. 

 Massachusetts, including the greater 



