MYRTLE WARBLER. 363 



DENDROICA CORONATA (LINN.). 

 271. Myrtle Warbler. (655) 



Mal-t: In spring, slaty-blue streaked with black; breast and sides, mostly 

 black ; throat and belly, pure white, immaculate ; rump, central crown patch 

 and sides of breast, sharply yellow, there being thus four definite yellow 

 places ; sides of head, black ; eyelids and superciliary line, white ; ordinary 

 white wing bars and tail blotches ; bill and feet, black ; male in winter 

 and female in summer similar, but slate color less pure or quite brownish. 

 Young : Quite brown above, obscurely streaked below. Length, 5-5f ; 

 wing, 3 ; tail, 2^. 



HAB. Eastern North America chiefly, straggling more or less commonly 

 westward to the Pacific ; breeds from the Northern United States northward, 

 and winters from the Middle States and the Ohio Valley southward to the 

 West Indies and Central America. 



Nest, in a low tree or bush, composed chiefly of hemlock twigs and soft 

 vegetable fibres, lined with feathers. 



Eggs, three to 'five, creamy-white, marked with brownish-purple. 



The familiar Yellow-rump is the first of the family to arrive in 

 spring, often appearing early in April, and for a time it is the one 

 most frequently met with in the woods, where it is observed passing 

 in loose flocks among the upper branches of the trees. 



By the middle of May, they have mostly disappeared, and are not 

 again seen in Southern Ontario till the end of September. No doubt 

 many of the warblers spend the summer in the thinly settled, uncul- 

 tivated tracts of Ontario, but their haunts are so seldom visited by 

 anyone interested in the birds, that it is only occasionally we hear 

 of them. 



Quite recently Mr. W. L. Kells found this species breeding near 

 Listowel. The locality in which the nest was found was a clump of 

 black ash, intermingled with cedars and balsams. 



Macfarlane found this species nesting on the Anderson River. 

 There its nest was often placed on the ground, but that might be 

 a necessity, for trees or bushes are not always available in that 

 northern region. 



They linger late in the fall, as if unwilling to leave, and many 

 probably do not go much beyond our southern boundary, though 

 none have been known to remain here over the winter. On the 

 Pacific coast, this species has been replaced by Dendroica auduboni 

 (Audubon's Warbler). These two species resemble each other very 

 closely, the principal difference being that in the western species the 



