378 NOTES ON THE 
the eye and running into the chestnut of the ear coverts; back, 
shoulder, edges of the wing and tail yellowish olive, the 
former spotted with dusky; one row of small coverts and outer 
bases of the secondary coverts form a large patch of white 
tinged with pale yellow; tertials rather broadly edged with 
brownish white; quills and tail dark brown, the three outer 
feathers of the latter largely marked with white on the inner 
web; edge of the outer weh of the outer feathers white, more 
perceptible towards the base. 
Length, 5.25; wing, 2.85; tail, 2.15. 
Habitat, eastern North America, north to Hudson Bay, west 
to the Plains. 
DENDROICA ESTIVA (GMELIN). (652.) 
YELLOW WARBLER. 
Not for its beautiful colors, for they are certainly unonsten- 
tatious; not for its melodies, for they are not conspicuous in 
the grand choristry of bird song; nor for its rariety, for its 
numbers exceed any other species of the warblers, but after 
the combination of all expressible reasons comes the inexpres- 
sible one of its remarkable, inseparable association with the 
return of full grown, voluptuous spring and summer embraced 
in one living, throbbing resurrection. Until the unsympathetic, 
desouled systematologists robbed it of its rightful heritage, it 
bore the appropriate and expressive name Swmmer Warbler. 
With this name were inseparably associated the fra- 
grance of flowers, the earlier butterflies, the new born ver- 
dure of forest and field, ‘‘the smiles and frowns of April show- 
ers,’’ with all their golden memories of childhood, youth, and 
riper, rounder years. Yellow Warbler? How little. it means. 
Where is the ring of spring init? It has nothing sweet nor 
green in all of its ripened October sought significance. 
Late in April this warbler comes amongst us as unheralded 
as the gentle shower that patters on the roof atdaybreak. By 
the 12th to the 15th of May, they construct one of the most 
artistic, and substantial nests known as belonging to the war- 
blers. Itis either placed in the forks of a bush, or so as to 
embrace several small branches, about four or five feet above 
the ground, and consists of bark from weeds, strips of the liber 
of grapevines, with which the woods abound, into which are 
ingeniously woven various materials, the special character of 
which is determined by the immediate surroundings of the lo- 
cality, embracing bits of wool, down from dead wood and 
weedstalks, dry grass, and the long hairs from horses and cat- 
