MAGNOLIA WARBLER. 22 5 



banks of the Saskatchewan, where it is as familiar as the com- 

 mon Summer Yellow Bird {S. astiva), which it also resembles 

 closely in its manners and in its breeding station, but is gifted 

 with a more varied and agreeable song. It frequents the 

 thickets of young spruce-trees and willows, flitting from branch 

 to branch, at no great distance from the ground, actively en- 

 gaged in the capture of winged insects, which now constitute 

 its principal fare. 



The MagnoHa is not so rare a bird as Nuttall supposed, — indeed, 

 it is common everywhere between the Atlantic and the eastern 

 base of the Rockies, breeding in northern New England and in 

 the northern portions of New York, Ohio, and Michigan, and 

 thence to Labrador and Great Slave Lake. 



In Massachusetts it is chiefly a spring and autumn visitor, though 

 Mr. William Brewster found a few pairs nesting in the Berkshire 

 Hills. It winters in Central America, Cuba, and the Bahamas. 



In its habits this bird combines the Creeper and the Flycatcher 

 in true Warbler fashion, picking insects and larvae from the cran- 

 nies of the bark and from the leaves, and capturing on the wing the 

 flying mites. The favorite nesting site is the border of a wood 

 or an open pasture, though I have found nests in the deep forest, 

 usually on the margin of an open glade. 



The song is Warbler-like in its simplicity, yet is an attractive 

 melody, the tones sweet and musical. 



Nuttall's idea that the autumn route of migration taken by more 

 northern breeding birds lies somewhere to the westward of New 

 England, is not consistent with more recent observation ; for while 

 it is true that large numbers follow the valley of the Mississippi, — 

 some of them crossing to the Atlantic when south of the Allegha- 

 nies, — it has also been ascertained that immense flights of birds 

 that breed in the interior go southward along the coast-line. Many 

 species that are not seen in New England during the spring migra- 

 tion are abundant in the autumn. 



VOL. I. — 15 



