CERULEAN WARBLER. 365 



who have seen them elsewhere. So far as I have observed, this is 

 not one of the high fliers, being seldom seen among the tree tops, but 

 mostly in young woods, particularly evergreens, where its colors show 

 to advantage against the back-ground of dark foliage. 



When seen in spring, flitting from bush to bush, one is apt to 

 suppose that it will not travel much farther before settling for the 

 summer, but Macoun reports finding it at Lake Mistasini on the 

 25th May, 1885, and Richardson met with it on the banks of the 

 Saskatchewan 011 the 26th May, 1827. 



DENDROICA C^ERULEA (WiLs.). 

 273. Cerulean Warbler. (658) 



Male in spring: Azure-blue, with black streaks; below, pure white; breast 

 and sides with blue or blue-black streaks ; two white wing bars ; tail blotches 

 small, but occupying every feather, except, perhaps, the central pair ; bill, 

 black; feet, dark. Female, and young with the blue strongly glossed with 

 greenish, and the white soiled with yellowish ; a yellowish eye ring and 

 superciliary line. Length, 4-4^. 



HAB. Eastern United States and Southern Canada to the Plains. Rare 

 or casual east of Central New York and .the Alleghaiiies. Cuba (rare) and 

 Central America in winter. 



Nest, in the outer fork of a branch, twenty to fifty feet from the ground, 

 composed of bark strips, grass and rootlets, and lined with fine grass and fibre ; 

 outside are many pieces of gray moss fastened with spider silk. 



Eggs, four, greenish- white, blotched with brown and lilac at the larger end. 



The Cerulean Warbler is, I think, a regular summer resident in 

 Southern Ontario, but is somewhat local in its distribution. One 

 spring I searched for it carefully near Hamilton without seeing a 

 single individual, while across the Bay, four miles off, Mr. Dickson 

 reported it as quite common, and breeding in the woods near the 

 Waterdown station of the Grand Trunk railway. Its home and 

 haunts are among the upper branches of the trees, and, except on a 

 blustering, rainy day, it is seldom seen among the lower branches. 

 Its song is almost identical with that of the Parula Warbler, but in 

 the latter species it rises to a slightly higher key at the close, while 

 the Cerulean's ditty is uniform throughout. The colors of the bird 

 are very pleasing when it is seen in a good light, fluttering among 

 the topmost twigs of a beech or maple, the azure-blue and silvery- 

 white seeming like a shred wafted from the drapery of the sky. Dr. 

 Wheaton mentions the species as abundant in Ohio, but generally it. 

 is considered rare. 



