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AUDUBON'S WARBLER. 



Sylvia Auduboni, Townsend. 



PLATE CCCXCV. Male and Female. 



This species, so very intimately allied to Sylma coronata, that an 

 observer might readily mistake the one for the other, was discovered 

 by Dr Townsend, who has done me the honour of naming it after me. 

 He states, that " the Chinook Indians know it by the name of ' Fout- 

 sah,'' and that it is very numerous about the Columbia River, arriving 

 there in the middle of March, and remaining to breed, but disappear- 

 ing in the end of June. In the beginning of October it is again seen, 

 with its plumage renewed. Its voice so nearly resembles that of the 

 Chestnut-sided Warbler as to render it difficult to distinguish them. 

 It keeps in the most impervious thickets, and is always silent when en- 

 gaged in seeking its food." Mr Nuttali. has favoured me with the 

 following animated account of it. 



" This elegant species, one of the beautiful and ever-welcome har- 

 bingers of approaching summer, we found about the middle of April, 

 accompanying its kindred troop of Warblers, enlivening the dark and 

 dreary wilds of the Oregon. The leaves of the few deciduous trees 

 were now opening rapidly to the balmy influence of the advancing 

 spring, and flowers but rarely seen even by the botanist, sent forth their 

 delicious fragrance, and robed in beauty the shady forests and grassy 

 savannahs. But nothing contributes so much life to the scene as the 

 arrival of those seraphic birds, the Thrushes and Warblers, which, unit- 

 ing in one wild and ecstatic chorus of delight, seemed to portray, how- 

 ever transiently, the real rather than the imaginary pleasures of para- 

 dise. Nor in those sad and distant wilds were the notes of the gilded mes- 

 senger of summer {Stjhia cestiva) the less agreeable that I had heard 

 them a thousand times before. The harmonies of Nature are not made 

 to tire, but to refresh the best feelings of the mind, to recall the past, 

 and make us dwell with delight upon that which best deserves our re- 

 collection. But what was my surprise to hear the accustomed note of 

 the Summer Yellow-Bird delivered in an improved state by this new 

 Warbler, clad in a robe so different but yet so beautiful. Like that 

 species, also he was destined to become our summer acquaintance, breed- 



