SPECIES 14. SYLVIA CANADENSIS. 



BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER. 



[Plate XV. Fig. 7.] 



Motacilla Canadensis, LINN. Syst. 336. Lefiguier bleu, BUFF, v, 

 304. PI. Enl. 685, Jig. 2. LATH. Sijn. n, p. 487, JVo. 113. 

 EDW. 252. w2rc. ZooJ. p. 399, JVo. 285. PEALE'S Museum, 



JVo. 7222.* 



I KNOW little of this bird. It is one of those transient visi- 

 tors that in the month of April pass through Pennsylvania on 

 its way to the north to breed. It has much of the Flycatcher 

 in its manners, though the form of its bill is decisively that of 

 the Warbler. These birds are occasionally seen for about a week 

 or ten days, viz. from the twenty-fifth of April to the end of 

 the first week in May. I sought for them in the southern states, 

 in winter, but in vain. It is highly probable that they breed 

 in Canada; but the summer residents among the feathered race, 

 on that part of the continent, are little known or attended to. 

 The habits of the bear, the deer and beaver, are much more 

 interesting to those people, and for a good substantial reason 

 too, because more lucrative; and unless there should arrive 

 an order from England for a cargo of skins of Warblers and 

 Flycatchers, sufficient to make them an object worth specu- 

 lation, we are likely to know as little of them hereafter as at 

 present. 



This species is five inches long, and seven and a half broad, 

 and is wholly of a fine light slate colour above; the throat, 

 cheeks, front and upper part of the breast is black; wings and 

 tail dusky black, the primaries marked with a spot of white 

 immediately below their coverts; tail edged with blue; belly 



* Sylvia cxmlesctns, VIKILL. Ois. de l\im. Sept. pi, 80. 

 VOL. II. T 



