SPECIES 8. SYLVIA 



BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 

 [Plate XIV. Fig. 4.] 



Parus peregrinus, the little Chocolate-breasted Titmouse, BAR- 

 TRAM, p, 292. PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 7311. 



THIS very rare species passes through Pennsylvania about 

 the beginning of May, and soon disappears. It has many of the 

 habits of the Titmouse, and all their activity; hanging among 

 the extremity of the twigs, and darting about from place to place, 

 with restless diligence, in search of various kinds of the larvae 

 of insects. It is never seen here in summer, and very rarely on 

 its return, owing, no doubt, to the greater abundance of foliage 

 at that time, and to the silence and real scarcity of the species. 

 Of its nest and eggs we are altogether uninformed. 



The length of this bird is five inches, breadth eleven; throat, 

 breast, and sides under the wings, pale chestnut or bay; forehead, 

 cheeks, line over, and strip through the eye, black; crown deep 

 chestnut; lower parts dull yellowish white; hind head and back 

 streaked with black on a grayish buff ground ; wings brownish 

 black, crossed with two bars of white; tail forked, brownish 

 black, edged with ash, the three exterior feathers marked with 

 a spot of white on their inner edges; behind the eye is a broad 

 oblong spot of yellowish white. The female has much less of 

 the bay colour on the breast; the black on the forehead is also 

 less and of a brownish tint. The legs and feet, in both, are dark 

 ash, the claws extremely sharp for climbing and hanging; the 

 bill is black; irides hazel. 



The ornithologists of Europe take no notice of this species, 

 and have probably never met with it. Indeed it is so seldom 



